The Successful Investor Hotline – Friday, April 24, 2009

Article Excerpt

PRECISION DRILLING TRUST, $5.70, Toronto symbol PD.UN, announced this week that it has issued $175 million in new long-term notes to the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo). AIMCo is a crown corporation that manages Alberta’s public-sector pension plans and other special funds. Precision is making the move to strengthen its balance sheet. AIMCo also bought 35 million Precision units at $3.00 each, for a total of $105 million. Moreover, Precision will give AIMCo warrants to buy 15 million more units at $3.22 each over the next five years. (As of March 31, 2009, there were 206.2 million Precision units outstanding.) AIMCo now owns roughly 15% of Precision’s units. This will rise to 19% if it exercises all of the warrants. Precision hopes to raise $103 million in additional funds through a rights offering to its existing unitholders. The trust did not reveal the details, but unitholders will be able to buy new units directly from the trust, depending on how many units they…