Dividend Post             www.dividendpost.com

www.preferreddividends.com    (This domain name is for sale)
 

Preferred stock, also called preferred shares or preference shares, is typically a higher ranking stock than voting shares, and its terms are negotiated between the corporation and the investor.

Preferred stock may carry superior voting rights to common stock or may not carry any voting rights at all. Preferred stock may carry a dividend that is paid out prior to any dividends to common stock holders. Preferred stock may have a convertibility feature into common stock. Preferred stockholders will be paid out in assets before common stockholders and after debt holders in bankruptcy. Terms of the preferred stock are stated in a "Certificate of Designation".

In the United States issuance of publicly listed preferred stock is generally limited to financial institutions, REITs and public utilities. Because in the US dividends on preferred stock are not tax deductible (like interest expense), the effective cost of capital raised by preferred stock is 35% greater than issuing the equivalent amount of debt at the same interest rate. This has led to the development of TRuPS (Trust-preferred security) which are essentially debt instruments with the same properties as preferred stock.

However, with a dividend tax of 15% and a top marginal tax rate of 35%, one dollar of dividend income taxed at these rates provides the same after-tax income as approximately $1.30 in interest.

The size of the preferred stock market in the United States has been estimated as USD 200-billion, as of August, 2006, compared to USD 16-trillion for equities and USD 5-trillion for bonds^.

Investors in Canadian preferred shares are generally those who wish to hold fixed-income investments in a taxable portfolio. Preferential tax treatment of dividend income, as opposed to interest income, may in many cases result in a greater after-tax return than might be achieved with bonds.

Back