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Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: Recently you remarked that REITS could be considered part of the fixed-income portion of a portfolio. Could the same be said of Mortgage Investment Corps (e.g. MCAN, Timbercreek, Trez), or would they be part of the equity allocation?

What is the difference between Timbercreek Mortgage Investment Corp. (TMC) and Timbercreek Senior Mortgage Investment Corp (MTG)? (Same with Trez Capital: TZZ and TZS.)
Read Answer Asked by chris on March 16, 2014
Q: FSZ (Fiera)has two large shareholders (Natl bank and DeJardiens) as well as having a meaningful stake owned by management......resulting in a small float. Do you have an opinion on why they have not taken the company private and do you think that they may do so in the near future?
Read Answer Asked by Clayton on March 11, 2014
Q: My Question in short:
Can you quantify the change in size of the alternate mortgage lending market due to the recent mortgage regulations changes in Canada? Can you also comment on the quality of said mortgages given that the regulations have essentially raised the bar on the mortgages that the big 5 will write up?

My Question in long form:
I’d appreciate you input on the change in the alternate lending market and any corrections you wish to add to the information I’ve provided.

From my research, there have been three sets of regulations changes to the financial industry in response to the 2008 financial crisis, the Volker rules, Dodd-Frank and Basel I, II, III. From my understanding, the Volker rules limit proprietary trading/derivatives and are thus irrelevant to this subject. The “Dodd-Frank reform” is a sort of blanket US legislation that is being written SEC and rolled out in pieces, some already in effect, until 2018. I believe it will have a direct effect on mortgage quality regulations in the US, but Canadian banks will be able to place there US operations in subsidiaries and thus Canadian operations will be unaffected.

On the other hand, Basel I, II, III and other OSFI policies will have a direct effect on the Canadian mortgage market in a two-fold fashion;
-Bank capital reserves requirements are more stringent from both a quantitative and qualitative measure.
-Rules regarding who qualifies for mortgage insurance have been elevated.

Benjamin Tal recently commented that these new regulations will raises the bar on who qualifies for a big 5 bank mortgage and thus create a new high quality tranche of mortgage business for alternative lenders such as HCG. Would you agree with that hypothesis? I believe the mortgage market is around 1.2 trillion in Canada; do you have an estimate on the size of this tranche of the market? Are there any other alternative lenders similar to HCG that stand to benefit from the change in the market place?


Thanks in advance for answering my question and also for the great research reports you regularly deliver.
Read Answer Asked by Emile on March 06, 2014
Q: Cant wait for the income portfolio. Any idea why Fiera (fsz) did not pay its last dividend which should have been declared in Feb?
Read Answer Asked by michael on March 04, 2014
Q: J.Hodgins was quoted in the Feb.28 Financial Post saying HCG's "leverage...is currently about 8.5X on its mortgage book. They are moving away from (CMHC) insured mortgages and more toward subprime, and we think this is exactly the wrong time to be doing that." His reco is sell/short on a pair trade though he doesn't say what he's long.

How accurate is what he is stating is Home Capital's strategy, and how important is that leverage number? What for instance are the competition's leverage ratios and what would be a conservative number? I know that Oaken has had a fairly aggressive GIC campaign on the 3 year and less notes over the last few months and I know they like to match the mortgage and GIC terms to reduce rate risk. I've absorbed your previous responses on his BNN appearance and agree with your rationale. Thanks, J.
Read Answer Asked by Jeff on March 03, 2014
Q: GCG.A had a strong fourth quarter.They also sold 160,000 BMO,perhaps to finance their emerging equity boutique in London.Are these signs that management is finally getting the lead out?
Regards
Bob
Read Answer Asked by Robert on March 03, 2014
Q: Counsel corp CXS is now down 1/3 from its high but I can see no reason for it. I plan fill up to a full position next week. Can you convince me this is folly?
P.S. Renewed my membership today. Quite happy with your service.
Read Answer Asked by Jim on March 03, 2014
Q: Hi, could you please comment on guardian capital's earnings. Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Adam on March 03, 2014
Q: Hi Peter
Thanks for your recent newsletter my favorite read of the day. We bought Altus Group (AIF) because of an answer to a question from back in Aug. We did some research and have being holding it since. It had a good jump this week. Would you say it is still a buy or just a hold. It makes up less than 1% of our portfolio. Thanks for groups time and effort.
Read Answer Asked by jeffrey on February 28, 2014
Q: What are your thoughts on CIBC? (cm)

For whatever reason, CIBC seems to be the black sheep of the Canadian banks? Why is that? While TD and BNS seem to be talked about constantly, few seems to talk about CIBC.

Comparatively, the other Canadian banks are trading well above 2007 highs while CIBC still trades at a 15% discount to 2007 highs.

Given its strong earnings report today and 2 dividend raises in the last year, CIBC looks cheap compared to peers. What do you think?

Thanks
Read Answer Asked by michael on February 28, 2014
Q: Hi Peter: This is a follow-up to Claudette's question regarding Mr. Hodgins' shorting of Home capital Group. As I recall, his argument was that the average house price should be equal to the net present value of a steam of 25 years (I think) of rental payments, and that current house prices are 40% over this level. Hence we have a bubble that will either burst or get deflated by a slow decay in house prices hence less mortgage income for HCG. What do you think of his argument?
Read Answer Asked by Roland on February 27, 2014
Q: Here is a general question. If anyone knew yesterday that Royal was going to report a 2 billion profit and clean beat all over, would they not have backed up the truck before today, in anticipation of a short term bounce? Instead, it is down a quarter. What does this say about the rationality of the markets. Is it possible there is more luck involved than is acknowledged and is a lot of investing similar to the lottery, notwithstanding common sense and a long term horizon. Thanks
Read Answer Asked by David on February 26, 2014
Q: Good morning. Could you please provide your updated thoughts on Counsel CXS? I appreciate that the stock gained substantially in 2013, but it's down about 30% from its $3.00 high last October. I'm happy to continue to hold it if you think it might recover. Otherwise, take my loss and move on. Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Thomas on February 24, 2014
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