Computershare is entering the shareholder tracing business. “Computershare Shareholder Solutions will effectively cut out the middle man and bring a professional approach to an area that has previously been populated by one man bands and bounty hunters,” says Jeff Sainsbury, Executive Manager at Computershare. “It’s a new venture for the company and should bring major benefits to shareholders who don’t know about their shares and the companies they’ve invested in.”
The new service is being launched to a limited number of listed companies and has already been taken up by businesses such as Investec and RMC. “Interest in our service is enormous and we have seven clients up and running from day one,” says Jeff. “We plan to limit ourselves to around 20 clients initially and expand from that base next year.”
An estimated 3 billion worth of shares in the UK are not traded or voted simply because the shareholder has forgotten he owns them.
“Shareholders are only human and their circumstances change,” continues Jeff. “They move house. They get married. They die. Unless a company’s registrar is informed by the shareholder, the register becomes rapidly out-of-date. The results are backlogs of unpaid dividends, missed voting opportunities and large numbers of inactive small holdings, which are expensive for companies to manage.”
The Computershare service uses a variety of tracing, research and investigation tools to reunite shareholders with their unclaimed entitlements – be they consideration cheques, dividends or shares. Shareholder Solutions determines whether a shareholder’s registered details are correct and if not undertakes investigations to establish the correct details. The shareholder is then mailed a user-friendly claim pack. Every scheme is tailored to the needs of the company in question.
The costs of the programme are usually met by the shareholders, once they are found, with a charge deducted from the proceeds prior to despatch. Where the value of entitlements is too small for fees to be recovered in this way, the company is likely to cover the cost of the programme. Occasionally a company chooses to fund the costs of a programme even when the value of entitlements is large enough for the shareholders to cover the costs themselves.
Where share proceeds are involved, shareholders can be offered the option of selling their shares through Computershare’s low-cost dealing service. This provides shareholders with a convenient, one-stop process enabling them to receive their proceeds in cash.
Charitably disposed companies may wish to give shareholders the option of donating their assets to Sharegift, the charitable share donation scheme. If they choose to do this, all fees are waived.
“This programme has benefits for everyone involved,” says Jeff. “Shareholders are reunited with forgotten assets, which could be a substantial sum. The company benefits from an accurate register of shareholders and reduces its maintenance costs.”