Enbridge Inc EBRZF

RE:How you can buy ENB at a discount

[ace1mccoy]

Obscure1 wrote:

E Split Corp is an ETF that only owns ENB shares.  The ETF offers Units from time to time consisting of a Preferred Shares (ENS-PR.TO) and Common Shares (ENS.TO)  

Typically, the ENS shares trade at a signfiicant premium to the NAV (Net Asset Value).  A premium to the NAV means you are paying more than the actual value of the ENB shares that the ENS portiion of the Unit holds.  Why would anyone do that you might ask.

1) ENS pays out $1.56 per year in dividends which is over a 13% yield at the current ENS price
2) The ENS dividend is paid out monthly which can really help investors relying upon income to manage their monthly bills
3) Typically, about 50% of the ENS dividend is classified as a return of capital for tax purposes which means that you don't pay any income on that half of the dividend until you sell.  The timinxxg benefit should be obvious so I won't explain it. 

Most investors don't know about Split funds.  Many that do know about Splits don't invest for a couple of reasons.  First, Split funds add leverage vs owning the underlying security (in the case of ENS the only underlying security is ENB). The leverage increases the returns on the NAV for ENS investors if the price of ENB  goes up, the opposite is true if the price of ENB goes down.  As such, the leverage increases the risk of owning ENS vs owning ENB. 

Another risk to owning Split funds is that they typically pay out more each year than they receive in the form of dividends from the underlying security.  That makes owning Split funds more risky that owning the underlying security.  For many Split funds, the fund pays out wayyy too much.  However in the case of ENS, the fund will only pay out about .75 more per share than it takes in.  When ENB raises its dividend about 3% again this November, the shortfall for next year will likely be about .70 for 5.  Each year that ENB raises its dividend, the risk of owning ENS goes down. 

If ENB increases it DCF (Distributable Cash Flow) about 3% per, the 3% is almost enough to offset the dividend overpayment by ENS. When ENS was created about 5 years ago, the dividend payout was .10 per month.  The fund manager (Middlefield) had to raise the monthly payout to .13 per the next year because ENB raised it dividend in Nov 2019 by about ten percent and was going to do so again the following November.  The ENS fund manager was pretty much forced to raise the payout as the fund was receiving too much cash which affected the leverage. 

Enough education about Splits. 

Instead of the ENS Split fund common shares trading at a premium for the above noted reasons, the ENS shares are actually trading at a 1.68% discount the NAV.  In essence, that means you can buy ENB shares through ENS at the moment for $50.80 which is .87 below the market price of ENB.  This has happened before but it is rare.  It won't take long for ENS to move back to trading at a premium to the NAV as it always does. 

This post is already pretty long so I will stop here.  If you have questions, put them in a post and I will answer them. 

Excellent Post Obscure 
Well worth the read.