Recovering forgotten about share dividends

4strings

Hi folks.

My sister has (rather luckily) discoverd that she has a number of Sun Life Financial of Canada shares that she was given when they demutalised many years back. She had also been getting quarterly dividends but SLFoC did not have her bank details so the payments have been slowly accruing with them.

Basically, over the years, she has moved, divorced, remarried and in that time was awarded the shares but SLFoC did not have her current details and so she has never received the certifacte, nor as previously noted, the dividend payments.

She has just been contacted by a company working for SLFoC called Georgeson who are chasing down these lost shares owners and helping them to claim their dividend pot.. but for a price of 14% of the value. In their introductory letter they do note you can do this process yourself directly with SLFoC but of course don't detail how to do this.

As noted, she doesn't have the shares certificate and doesn't know of the best way to approach SLFoC to try and access her dividends without using Georgeson and losing 14% of her funds.

So, does anyone know the best way to start things rolling and what SLFoC may require?

Thanks for any help.
Mark

Brie

Details on the attached link to their website does confirm Georgeson as one way of claiming them but also gives their address in Toronto.  

Unclaimed asset programs | Sun Life

If you don't fancy writing or ringing them you might try the contact on here:

Shareholder contacts | Sun Life

[Deleted User]

Hi,

seems SLFoC is now part of Phoenix, best to contact the registrars,

Registrar details

Computershare Investor Services plc

The Pavilions, Bridgwater Road, Bristol
BS99 6ZY, UK

Shareholder helpline number:

+44 (0) 370 702 0181

wmb194

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

seems SLFoC is now part of Phoenix, best to contact the registrars,

Registrar details

Computershare Investor Services plc

The Pavilions, Bridgwater Road, Bristol
BS99 6ZY, UK

Shareholder helpline number:

+44 (0) 370 702 0181

Phoenix bought Sun Life's UK policies, not the entire company. Sun Life of Canada is still going and listed in Canada and the US.

The link above says that UK certificated shareholders can contact Link (a registrar) so I'd start there.

There's often a limit to how many years of unclaimed dividends registrars will keep before they are forfeited back to the company. For British companies this is usually six years and I'd imagine Canadian might be something similar.

4strings

Thanks everyone, this has given us a direction to start in.