Typically, up to one-fifth of registered shareholders do not respond to requests to tender shares after a mandatory plan of arrangement or compulsory acquisition. In these cases, investors may have moved and are unaware of the merger, don’t know of the requirement to exchange their shares, have lost their certificates, are deceased or have simply forgotten that they own the investment. For an issuer, maintaining these inactive shareholder accounts on a register with a transfer agent can be costly and impair investor relations efforts. The numbers can increase over time which can impact the success of future corporate action events, special meetings, and AGMs.

Kingsdale’s Asset Reclamation service will locate and assist shareholders to convert un-exchanged shares of previously acquired companies into new entitlements. The Asset Reclamation service is founded on a two-part value proposition:

• We eliminate the time and cost for issuers to find lost shareholders and make it easy for shareholders to exchange their shares by helping them every step of the way. Registered shareholders may move and forget about their investment or they may be deceased. In each of these cases, the transfer agent will not be able to deliver dividend cheques, proxy material, or any other corporate communication to these “lost” shareholders.
• Our Asset Reclamation service is free to issuers and transfers the effort to us as we are compensated by the shareholder.

Not all mergers or acquisitions are the same. Our Asset Reclamation program is designed to be flexible and can be customized to consider unique requirements such as:

• A customized approach to each engagement with a unique strategy that suits your specific shareholder base, and last known domicile. We can also consider any special elements to the engagement such as paying accrued dividends, tax remittance and reporting etc.
• Extensive and innovative search tools that locate shareholders worldwide.
• A process to transfer the risk associated with lost certificates to us, simplifying the exchange for shareholders.
• Custom call scripts and tailored Q&A’s from our in-house, multilingual call centre.
• A high level of client service supporting your shareholders through the exchange process by our trained and experienced multi-lingual call centre.
• Efficient and effective payment and cash entitlement processing with multicurrency and delivery options.
• Customized management reporting providing progress updates.

The duration of our program is flexible and also includes a quarterly mailing to shareholders which will remind them of their options in exchanging their shares.

Kingsdale’s Asset Reclamation service is designed as an efficient and convenient way for shareholders to claim the new securities or entitlements.

Kingsdale Asset Reclamation Specialists use their tested and proven research methodology to locate “lost” shareholders which are contacted by phone, mail, and email.

Kingsdale’s Client Service Team provides shareholders with personalized customer support throughout the exchange process which includes:

• Advising on the documents required in different circumstances, (legal and tax forms, estate, joint power of attorney, corporate, and other registrations).
• Assistance in completing the documents required to exchange securities and providing follow- up when appropriate with additional assistance.
• Audit of documents received to ensure that everything is in good order before submitting them for processing any potential processing delays.

Kingsdale's Corporate Action Team provides guidance on the most complex situations and audits all shareholder submissions to ensure that they adhere to the strict STAC (Securities Transfer Agents of Canada) guidelines as well as all securities regulatory requirements.