unclaimed share dividends

trivial

Hi All,

Over the years I have bought small quantities of shares and I have regularly been receiving cheques for the dividends but have not banked many of the cheques due to illness. Now I am getting much better and i'm wondering what is the most efficient way of claiming these monies. I do not actually have many of the cheques. Also I cannot be 100% sure of which stocks I actually own.

So my questions to the Forum are (i) How can I check up on which stocks I own ? Is there some sort of 'central register' which would confirm this for me ? How do I actually go about claiming all of the unclaimed dividends, some of which go back 15-20 years ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

digerati

trivial wrote: »

Hi All,

Over the years I have bought small quantities of shares and I have regularly been receiving cheques for the dividends but have not banked many of the cheques due to illness... Also I cannot be 100% sure of which stocks I actually own.

So my questions to the Forum are (i) How can I check up on which stocks I own ? Is there some sort of 'central register' which would confirm this for me ? How do I actually go about claiming all of the unclaimed dividends, some of which go back 15-20 years ?

Your old stockbroker's statements should list your historic purchases and sales so that would be the best place to find your old stocks. As to dividends, many companies reclaim unpaid dividends after seven years so you might find that your failure to bank them (or set up direct credits/script reinvestment) will hit your pocket. You can contact the main company registrars and ask them to supply a list of your registered holdings.

Any nominee holdings will be held at your stockbrokers, but they normally collect dividend and sweep into your credit account.

Registrars

Capita Registrars
Shareholder Administration Support 34 Beckenham Road
Beckenham
Kent
BR3 4TU
http://www.capitaregistrars.com
0870 162 3191

Computershare
The Registrar
Computershare Investor Services PLC
PO Box 82, The Pavilions
Bridgwater Road
Bristol
BS99 7NH
www-uk.computershare.com

Lloyds TSB Registrars
The Causeway
Worthing
West Sussex
BN99 6DA
www.lloydstsb-registrars.co.uk
0870 600 3989

Other resources

The Unclaimed Assets Register
6th Floor
Cardinal Place
80, Victoria Street
London
SW1E 5JL
0870 241 1713
www.uar.co.uk

Hope this helps :-)

Annisele

What digerati said

Lloyds TSB Registrars are now Equiniti, and you can find their contact details here.

jimjames

Some now offer the option to pay directly into your bank account to avoid having cheques. Other companies allow you to reinvest the dividend to buy more shares in the company which can be a useful way to build up your holding at low cost if you don't need the money - and if the cheques haven't been cashed I assume that is the case.

Either of these options also means it is automatic and you don't need to remember to do anything once it is setup.

trivial

Thank you very much Digerati, Annisele and jimjames.

I'd like to clarify a couple of points - (i) these purchases were actually public offerrings eg BT, BG etc so no stockbroker was used (at least not that I can remember) therefore I can't go back to any such company for the info. (ii) what this means is that I may well own stocks in co's that I am unaware of so will that info be held by the unclaimed assetts reg or any other body ?

I will off course set up a direct payment into my bank account once I have found out exactly what I own and what I am owed, its just establishing that in the first place which is a bit of a challenge.

trivial

is that I have approx £1500 coming my way :j

Equiniti will send me a form to action this, so i'll get that underway asap. They also said I may well be able to claim dividends going back further than 7 years.

This is great news when you're coming out of illness and you have no income or benefits, thanks again to Digerati, Annisele and jimjames :T

middlepuss

Have you moved house? If not, you should get a dividend cheque every 6 months from each company you have shares in.

trivial

middlepuss wrote: »

Have you moved house? If not, you should get a dividend cheque every 6 months from each company you have shares in.

I have moved house but that wasn't the issue. Problem was that during my illness I didn't get it together to bank the cheques which were sent out to me, I still have some cheques and some have gone awol. But Equiniti are sending me a form so I can collect divi's for at least the last 7 years (minus some admin charges) and I will arrange for all future payments to go straight into my account.

middlepuss

Good.

But is Equiniti the Registrar for all the companies in which you hold shares? Dividend slips show who the company's Registrar is.

trivial

middlepuss wrote: »

Good.

But is Equiniti the Registrar for all the companies in which you hold shares? Dividend slips show who the company's Registrar is.

Thats true middlepuss, actually there appear to be several co's who offer this 'company registrar' service, no one company has a monopoly on it, its not like some sort of a govt. agency. In my case, having searched through a mass of papers going back many years I only appear to have 4 different stockholdings which are all registered with Equiniti. Other registrars like Capita and Lloyds offer the same service too. Equiniti will not charge for the service they are providing to me.

The other avenue I will go down is to also try the Unclaimed Assetts Reg who charge £25 for checking out many different areas where I may have a few quid stashed away.

middlepuss

Best of luck, I hope you find some assets.

Yes, as you say there are several Registrars.

The managers of every UK company - BT, BG, BP, Roll-Royce, etc - decide who they want to be their Registrar. Equiniti is a popular choice.

So if BT has choosen Equiniti, Equiniti will keep the list of who owns which shares in BT, Equiniti will handle the payment of BT's dividends, etc.

If you did have shares in a company whose Registrar is not Equiniti, Equiniti would not know anything about that shareholding. But hopefully the Unclaimed Assetts Reg would discover those other holdings.

Anyway, hope it all works out. Let us know if the Unclaimed Assetts Reg find anything?