RE:Sold some today"Middlefield, like all funds is dividend hunter so they might wait until the beginning of March to do a Raise assuming that ENS investors remain asleep at the wheel post ENB ex-divi. "
I'm not sure what planet I was on with the above statement. Yes, Middlefield is a dividend hunter. However, in the case of its ENB holdings, the key date is Feb 14th. If they own ENB by Feb 13th, they get the divide while buying from Feb 14th onwards means they have to wait 3 months until the next ex-divi date.
Given that it takes 8 days to close a Raise including the "intention to raise" announcement date, Monday Feb 5th could be a critical day....or not. I think that a Raise announced on Monday afternoon with a $11.95 ish Common price and a $10.00 Pref price would be marketable and I suspect the "trigger" on the Premium to the NAV price has been achieved. Announcing a deal on Monday the 5th and closing the deal on Feb 13 would give Middlefield an opportunity to load up on the 13th or to buy ENB at a $2 discount on the 14th and for a couple of days afterwards.
Iffffff Middlefield announces a Raise at $11.95 on Monday, I would expect to see the price of the ENS common shares down in the $11.50 range next week.
Sorry for all of this detailed stuff. I'm doing it for selfish reasons as my "old guy" thinking process includes writing things down.
It is important to understand that Middlefield's sole goal is to raise funds so that they have more assets under management to collect fees from.
For Middlefield, it is all about taking advantage of when the Premium to the NAV is high enough to cover the dual cost of the "Discount" offered in the Raise AND the cost of doing the raise which is primarily the sales commissions that it pays to the investment brokers.
I spoke to Middlefield yesterday to confirm the costs of doing a Raise so I could calculate a likely "trigger point" for doing a Raise.
Now that the Split Funds have all moved to the dark side, which is my way of describing their new found ability to do a Raise when the Prefs are below $10 (which makes sense as long as the Raise doesn't have a negatively effect on the NAV), I have decided to start calculating the Premium to the Unit NAV. The same principles apply in that a Raise decision will be still be made based upon breaching a trigger point, but it is now based upon the Unit rather than the Common.
Somebody posted the same logic a while back but I was too busy at the time to respond and I decided that as long as Middlefield was playing by the "old" rules, it didn't matter. Now that applicaton of the rules have changed, calculating the Unit NAV with a view to trigger points makes more sense.