RE: $750,000,000 shelf prospectusPuzzling. It would be nice if they'd tell us what they're thinking rather than making us guess.
They don't seem to need the money given their historically high capital ratios and their comments that the Basel changes won't have a big effect.
A few times I've heard Gerry make comments about the clean capital structure, something like "we have no warrants or preferreds, ...". On the other hand, every time Fitch did a report, he has deemed it worthy of mention despite the fact that they've never issued any bonds.
In this business, they spend an awful lot of time thinking about interest rates, so perhaps they just see a real opportunity to raise money cheaply via bonds, maybe combined with an equity raise to keep their ratios stable.
While I think ETC might make a good partner, I think they could just do it as a merger if they were so inclined, which wouldn't necessitate the raising of capital.
That prospectus is devoid of any useful information. It's 100% boilerplate red tape.