Corporate Sponsored Nominee vs Share Certificate - Pros & Cons

atari_st

Hi,

I have a share save scheme with my employer (FT100 company) and now have the ability to exercise my option which is good news. As part of the purchase I have the option to select a Corporate Sponsored Nominee (with Equiniti) or Share Certificate. I know that CSNs are becoming more popular and easier to use and wanted to check what are the major pros vs cons against a Share Certificate which seems more hassle.

Any thoughts?

wmb194

atari_st said:

Hi,

I have a share save scheme with my employer (FT100 company) and now have the ability to exercise my option which is good news. As part of the purchase I have the option to select a Corporate Sponsored Nominee (with Equiniti) or Share Certificate. I know that CSNs are becoming more popular and easier to use and wanted to check what are the major pros vs cons against a Share Certificate which seems more hassle.

Any thoughts?

Do you have to use the CSN or could you get the share certificate and lodge it with your preferred stockbroker? I'd try avoid Equiniti as it tends to be expensive and useless.

Using broker nominee accounts is definitely better than holding a certificate which could be lost, have issues surrounding corporate events, confuse executors, ...

Officer_Dibble

Equinity have high charges compared with many online share dealing services (1% rather than a flat £9.95 or whatever), but it's certainly the easier option. If you have a dealing account already then getting the certificate and transferring it into that (usually free) would be cheaper and not much extra work, but it probably isn't worth opening an account just for that holding.

Vortigern

I'd take the certificate and lodge it with my chosen broker. This would be XO if I intended to sell at the earliest opportunity.

If you're intending to keep the shares, you have the option to lodge the certificate in an ISA, subject to the usual £20,000 allowance.