Royal Mail shares after retirement - abrdn??

Sunshine_and_Roses

My OH retired from Royal Mail last year.  He has 913 shares which were given free to employees a number of years ago.  He used to receive dividends directly into has bank account, but this has stopped since he left the company.

He has recently received an email from abrdn, saying that a dividend of 7.30p has been approved and paid into bank accounts in May.  This is the first contact from this company, and no money has been paid into his bank account.  He has just received another email asking him to log into his account, and provide bank details, otherwise any dividends may not be paid and a fee may be charged for their release.

Is this the usual procedure, and is it safe to provide details like this?  We have no experience of shares so at a bit wary of these emails.

Thanks for any advice.

wmb194

clareski said:

My OH retired from Royal Mail last year.  He has 913 shares which were given free to employees a number of years ago.  He used to receive dividends directly into has bank account, but this has stopped since he left the company.

He has recently received an email from abrdn, saying that a dividend of 7.30p has been approved and paid into bank accounts in May.  This is the first contact from this company, and no money has been paid into his bank account.  He has just received another email asking him to log into his account, and provide bank details, otherwise any dividends may not be paid and a fee may be charged for their release.

Is this the usual procedure, and is it safe to provide details like this?  We have no experience of shares so at a bit wary of these emails.

Thanks for any advice.

How are the shares being held? With a stockbroker or are they being managed via the share registrar? (I'm guessing with the registrar.) Either way, you'd normally just log into the broker/registrar website and provide the account details for income to be paid to. You could no doubt achieve the same by calling. It's not a problem.

Don't click a link in an email, though. Find the website yourself.

Btw, he does own Abdrn/Aberdeen shares? Obviously an email like that when you don't should be ignored.

masonic

wmb194 said:
Btw, he does own Abdrn/Aberdeen shares? Obviously an email like that when you don't should be ignored.

Presumably Abrdn is the broker holding the Royal Mail shares, so the question would be whether OP's OH has an Abrdn account.

dunstonh

Abdrn is the old Standard Life.  (Aberdeen Standard Life before the brand change to Abrdn)

The only reasons Abrdn would be involved is if there are ex ASL shares held or he holds the shares on one of the Abrdn investment platforms.

wmb194

dunstonh said:

Abdrn is the old Standard Life.  (Aberdeen Standard Life before the brand change to Abrdn)

The only reasons Abrdn would be involved is if there are ex ASL shares held or he holds the shares on one of the Abrdn investment platforms.

'abrdn' - LSE:ABDN - looks to have a shareholder portal managed by Shareview aka Equinti (the registrar).

https://www.shareview.co.uk/clients/abrdn/default.htm

https://www.abrdn.com/en-gb/corporate/investors/shareholder-information/shareholder-contacts

Sunshine_and_Roses

Thanks all.  The original shares were with Equinti, so that makes sense.  I have checked the Royal Mail shares portal and it says that within 30 days of leaving the shares should be sold or transferred.  If nothing is done then they will be transferred to a Corporate Sponsored Nominee, which I assume is abrdn.  I cannot log onto abrdn site as it says I need to register with a shareholder reference number which we do not have.  On their emails to OH it has a number but most of it is blocked out, showing just the last four numbers. 

It is our fault for leaving them for so long without querying the lack of dividends being paid.  We have no other shares and no experience so pretty clueless.  I think I will need to contact them on Monday to see what has happened to dividends for the last 12 months.  I may need to come back to you for advice on what to do ie selling/transfer.

wmb194

clareski said:

Thanks all.  The original shares were with Equinti, so that makes sense.  I have checked the Royal Mail shares portal and it says that within 30 days of leaving the shares should be sold or transferred.  If nothing is done then they will be transferred to a Corporate Sponsored Nominee, which I assume is abrdn.  I cannot log onto abrdn site as it says I need to register with a shareholder reference number which we do not have.  On their emails to OH it has a number but most of it is blocked out, showing just the last four numbers. 

It is our fault for leaving them for so long without querying the lack of dividends being paid.  We have no other shares and no experience so pretty clueless.  I think I will need to contact them on Monday to see what has happened to dividends for the last 12 months.  I may need to come back to you for advice on what to do ie selling/transfer.

The Corporate Sponsored Nominee is more likely to be Equiniti/Shareview.

Assuming it isn't a scam mail, are you certain you don't own shares in abrdn? The 7.3p dividend you mention in your OP relates to that company, not International Distributions Services aka Royal Mail. 

If you didn't buy them then were you ever a customer of Standard Life? If so, you may have received shares when it demutalised and they would have eventually become shares in abrdn (Aberdeen Standard Life as was) after they merged.

xylophone

The Registrar for Royal Mail (IDS) is still Equiniti.


https://www.shareview.co.uk/Clients/royalmail/Royal_Mail_Shareholder_Guide.pdf

what has happened to dividends for the last 12 months.

Dividend history here

https://www.internationaldistributionsservices.com/en/investors/shareholder-communications/dividend-information/

The record stops at the  dividend paid 6 September 2022.

And see

https://www.ii.co.uk/analysis-commentary/royal-mail-loses-ps1bn-and-scraps-final-dividend-ii527933

wmb194

xylophone said:

The Registrar for Royal Mail (IDS) is still Equiniti.


https://www.shareview.co.uk/Clients/royalmail/Royal_Mail_Shareholder_Guide.pdf

what has happened to dividends for the last 12 months.

Dividend history here

https://www.internationaldistributionsservices.com/en/investors/shareholder-communications/dividend-information/

The record stops at the  dividend paid 6 September 2022.

And see

https://www.ii.co.uk/analysis-commentary/royal-mail-loses-ps1bn-and-scraps-final-dividend-ii527933

To be clear, due to losses it has suspended its dividend so the OP's husband certainly shouldn't expect to receive any this year and possibly not again until 2025.

https://www.ii.co.uk/analysis-commentary/royal-mail-loses-ps1bn-and-scraps-final-dividend-ii527933

Sunshine_and_Roses

wmb194 said:

xylophone said:

The Registrar for Royal Mail (IDS) is still Equiniti.


https://www.shareview.co.uk/Clients/royalmail/Royal_Mail_Shareholder_Guide.pdf

what has happened to dividends for the last 12 months.

Dividend history here

https://www.internationaldistributionsservices.com/en/investors/shareholder-communications/dividend-information/

The record stops at the  dividend paid 6 September 2022.

And see

https://www.ii.co.uk/analysis-commentary/royal-mail-loses-ps1bn-and-scraps-final-dividend-ii527933

To be clear, due to losses it has suspended its dividend so the OP's husband certainly shouldn't expect to receive any this year and possibly not again until 2025.

https://www.ii.co.uk/analysis-commentary/royal-mail-loses-ps1bn-and-scraps-final-dividend-ii527933

That looks right, September 2022 was the last payment he received.  I have managed to copy part of the email he received:

This is an important email   Shareholder Reference No: *******0246

Dear Shareholder Your 2022 final dividend payment The final dividend for 2022 of 7.30p per share was approved by our shareholders at our AGM on 10 May 2023. Your dividend payment based on the shares you held on 31 March 2023, the dividend record date, has been paid into your bank account. Visit abrdnshares.com to see details of your dividend payment. Yours faithfully Julian Baddeley – Company Secretary abrdn plc From reading this, would you think that the Royal Mail shares are now in 'pot' with other company shares, all under the umbrella of abrdn?  I don't understand how there is a shareholder reference number when this is the first communication, or how they say it has been paid into a bank account unless Royal Mail passed these details on? 2022 final dividend The final dividend for 2022 is 7.30p per share. This was paid to shareholders on 16 May 2023.

masonic

My reading of that letter is that wmb194's original suspicion was correct and this has nothing at all to do with Royal Mail shares, and refers to a separate Abrdn shareholding.