, measured on a percentage basis, will widen or narrow in the future. My crystal ball is in the shop right now, so I am not going to make any specific predictions. But here are a couple of things we know for certain, along with some important context.
Second, because BIPC’s share price has outperformed, its yield has fallen sharply relative to BIP.UN’s. An investor buying BIPC today would receive a yield of about 3.5 per cent, compared with about 4.8 per cent for BIP.UN. So, from an income standpoint alone, BIP.UN is now the better choice. Note that both securities pay the same US$1.
Judging by BIPC’s superior share price performance, the plan seems to have worked. In addition, the fact that BIPC has only about one-quarter as many shares outstanding as BIP.UN may have magnified BIPC’s gains, reflecting supply and demand factors. It’s also possible that BIPC’s stellar performance has created something of a positive feedback loop, where its rising share price attracts more buyers, who push the share price even higher.
For example, on June 30, 2021, BIPC closed at $62.29 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. That was almost a 36-per-cent premium to BIP.UN’s unit price of $45.88 at the time. Over the next three months, BIPC tumbled almost 19 per cent, while BIP.UN gained more than 3 per cent. As a result, by Sept. 30, 2021, BIPC’s premium over BIP.UN had collapsed to less than 7 per cent.