Prospecting A Lesson On Burning Shareholders

The closed-end investment company filed its shelf registration statement last year to enable it to raise capital.  Now the sale was for 21,000,000 shares of common stock at a price of $11.15 per share, and the sole book-running firm of Barclays was granted a 30-day overallotment option to purchase up to 3,150,000 additional shares.

Shares are down 7.7% at $11.10 so far and the volume is about 9-times normal at 10.4 million shares in mid-day trading against a 52-week range of $7.41 to $12.00.  Longer-term holders are probably fine here, but any new shareholders of the last 17 trading days are feeling a sting as the pricing and the current price are both under the adjusted closing bell prices in that time.

It is hard to blame companies when they raise capital at 52-week or multi-year highs.  Still, almost nothing irks new investors more than when they decide to go into a stock and suddenly they get diluted as the company decides to sell more shares.

JON C. OGG