That’s a great intro to preffered shares. My only problem with pfd stocks is that you get the upside of a bond instrument with the downside of a stock instrument. If I wanted fixed income, I would purchase a bond. The pfd stocks in the US are pretty “hot” with the yield chasers of the day as the ETF that tracks a popular S&P pfd stock index (PFF) yields north of 11%now. Of course most US pfd’s are financials. In the case of Fannie and Freddie Preffered shares, investors lost over 80%-90% in a year while their dividends were suspended as well ( on both common or preffered).

If I liked a company I would stick with common, which gives you a potential to share in the company’s prosperity. If you bought a bad stock at the bad time however, the only thing that would lose the least is a corporate bond.