TORONTO, Nov. 29 /CNW/ - MINT Income Fund (the "Fund") is pleased to announce that it has filed a final prospectus in connection with an offering of Rights to its unitholders to subscribe for Units (the "Rights Offering"). Unitholders of record at the close of business (Toronto time) on December 12, 2007 will receive one Right for each MINT Unit held on the record date. The Rights will commence trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol MID.RT on December 10, 2007. Three Rights will entitle the holder to purchase one MINT Unit at a price of $9.75 until 4:00 p.m. (Toronto time) on January 10, 2008, at which time all unexercised Rights will expire with closing of exercised Rights to occur shortly thereafter. If all the Rights are exercised, the Fund will issue approximately 4.9 million Units and receive net proceeds of approximately $47 million. The subscription price of $9.75 represents a discount to net asset value of approximately 16% as at November 23, 2007.
Each holder of Rights who subscribes for all of the Units to which that holder is entitled under the Basic Subscription Privilege may subscribe for any number of additional Units, if available, at a price equal to the subscription price for each additional Unit, subject to availability. Units issued pursuant to this Rights Offering will participate in the January 2008 distribution. The directors and officers of the Manager who own Units intend to exercise all their Rights to acquire Units under the Basic Subscription Privilege.
The net proceeds of the Rights Offering will be invested by the Fund in accordance with its investment objectives. The Fund's investment objectives are to provide holders of its Units with (i) a high level of sustainable income distributed monthly, and (ii) a cost-effective method of reducing the risk of investing in high income securities. The Fund diligently selects and actively manages a diversified portfolio comprised primarily of high yielding equity securities of issuers operating in various industries and geographic regions. On an annualized basis, the current distribution rate of $1.20 per Unit represents a cash-on-cash yield of approximately 11.0% based on a Unit market price of $10.90 as at November 23, 2007. The Fund anticipates that this distribution rate of $1.20 per Unit will be maintained over the next 12 months. As at September 30, 2007, the Fund generated a year-to-date return of 15.4% and annualized returns of 18.0% for 3-years, 22.3% for 5-years and 13.9% since inception (assuming the reinvestment of distributions).
MINT Income Fund trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol MID.UN.
Certain statements in this press release may constitute forward-looking information, including statements regarding cash-on-cash yield. Forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause estimates to differ materially from the expectations expressed, including the risk that the per Unit distributions may decrease below the amount used in calculating the cash-on-cash yield, which could occur for various reasons beyond the control of the Fund such as a decrease in the distributions paid by the issuers of securities included in the Fund's portfolio or a change in general economic conditions. The forward-looking information contained in this press release constitutes the Fund's current estimate, as of the date of this press release, with respect to the matters covered hereby. Investors and others should not assume that any forward-looking statement contained in this press release represents the Fund's estimate as of any date other than the date of this press release.