The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition it is time to unveil a new metric -- the ratio of time spent on developing a floor price for a new type of security relative to the amount of space given over to that measure in the prospectus. The Post's Barry Critchley, writing in Off the Record, calls it the time-to-space ratio. In the case of new issues of non-viability contingent capital, the ratio is very high given the almost two years spent by some of the banks on developing the right methodology. Each $25 issue of NVCC rate reset preferred shares is convertible into five common shares meaning a conversion price of $5 per share. Various banks had been floating ideas about what should happen to NVCC in the unlikely event that there is a trigger event. According to the language used in prospectus filed for the recent $500-million offering by Bank of Montreal, one definition of a trigger event occurs when the federal regulator, OSFI, announces that in its opinion the bank "has ceased, or is about to cease, to be viable." BMO's deal started trading Wednesday. Mr. Critchley notes what many banks have done is use a $5 floor price, meaning five common shares for each pref share held based on the claim of $25.