Prudential Shares Demerger of Jackson Financial - Equiniti

Mabbi

My father passed away in 2022 and I am in the process of sorting out his estate.  

My dad was a long term employee of Prudential and
as such had accumulated shares in Pru plc.

In 2017 a demerger occurred between Pru and Jackson Financial
and all Pru shareholders gained shares in Jackson as result.

As I understand it these were to be listed on the NYSE under the ticker symbol JXN.

Equiniti who are the registrars for the Pru and Jackson holdings. They have informed me that the shares are listed on the London stock exchange.

I have looked these up and I think the ticker symbol is 0JKF.
I have written to Equiniti and asked for clarification about the holding including the ticker symbol. Equiniti  replied saying that a form was sent out in 2017 to all shareholders of the Pru asking if they wanted the shares to be held in London or New York. After having not heard a response from my dad they issued shares in London which was the default option.

They have still not clarified what the ticker symbol of the holding is as I requested.

Sorry for the long winded question but do any contributors here have a similar experience with Equiniti regarding the Jackson demerger and was the default option  the 0JKF listing? I can not find any paperwork saying that this was the case.

To complicate things I have received a W8-Ben form from Equiniti which as I understand it  you only get if you hold shares in the USA. The only shares  this would apply to for my Dad was his holding in  Jackson Financial. This would not apply if the listing is in London which is in GBP.

We are yet to transfer the shares but I am reluctant to do so until we get clarification about the shares held. There is a large difference in the value between the London and NY listings.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

wmb194

Mabbi said:

My father passed away in 2022 and I am in the process of sorting out his estate.  

My dad was a long term employee of Prudential and
as such had accumulated shares in Pru plc.

In 2017 a demerger occurred between Pru and Jackson Financial
and all Pru shareholders gained shares in Jackson as result.

As I understand it these were to be listed on the NYSE under the ticker symbol JXN.

Equiniti who are the registrars for the Pru and Jackson holdings. They have informed me that the shares are listed on the London stock exchange.

I have looked these up and I think the ticker symbol is 0JKF.
I have written to Equiniti and asked for clarification about the holding including the ticker symbol. Equiniti  replied saying that a form was sent out in 2017 to all shareholders of the Pru asking if they wanted the shares to be held in London or New York. After having not heard a response from my dad they issued shares in London which was the default option.

They have still not clarified what the ticker symbol of the holding is as I requested.

Sorry for the long winded question but do any contributors here have a similar experience with Equiniti regarding the Jackson demerger and was the default option  the 0JKF listing? I can not find any paperwork saying that this was the case.

To complicate things I have received a W8-Ben form from Equiniti which as I understand it  you only get if you hold shares in the USA. The only shares  this would apply to for my Dad was his holding in  Jackson Financial. This would not apply if the listing is in London which is in GBP.

We are yet to transfer the shares but I am reluctant to do so until we get clarification about the shares held. There is a large difference in the value between the London and NY listings.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

If Equiniti's saying that's how it holds them, that's how it holds them. You're seven years too late to worry about it. Assuming they're held in a nominee account, on the plus side at least you're not going to have to deal with US certificates that require expensive medallion stamps. 

The W8-Ben form is still relevant as it's a US company and the W8-Ben allows withholding tax on dividends to be 15% rather than the default 30%.

I'm not sure why the number at the top of the page is wrong on the LSE's website but if you look at the most recent trades it looks like it's trading in London at about the same price +/- as in New York. If they're the CDIs listed in London or the shares in New York it shouldn't make much difference. I suspect your biggest problem will be how much Equiniti burns you on its commission to sell them.



https://www.londonstockexchange.com/market-stock/0JKF/jackson-financial-inc/overview 

eskbanker

wmb194 said:

If Equiniti's saying that's how it holds them, that's how it holds them. You're seven years too late to worry about it. 

https://www.prudentialplc.com/en/investors/shareholder-information/historical-information/demerger-of-jackson suggests that the demerger was actually in 2021, rather than the 2017 OP stated, not sure if that has something to do with any confusion (which could perhaps be mine!)?

wmb194

eskbanker said:

wmb194 said:

If Equiniti's saying that's how it holds them, that's how it holds them. You're seven years too late to worry about it. 

https://www.prudentialplc.com/en/investors/shareholder-information/historical-information/demerger-of-jackson suggests that the demerger was actually in 2021, rather than the 2017 OP stated, not sure if that has something to do with any confusion (which could perhaps be mine!)?

That makes more sense, I didn’t remember it being so long ago but I didn’t double check. It won’t make any difference.

I held the US listed PRU shares (“PUK”) at the time* and received the US listed Jackson shares but this doesn’t help the OP.

*To avoid paying stamp duty.

Mabbi

Hi, thanks both for your response.

Yes I was wrong it was 2021 when Jackson demerged from Prudential.  M&G demerged from the Pru in 2017 and I somehow got them both mixed up.

Yes, I can see now  that they are trading at the same price in London. 

What was slightly concerning was that in a recent phone call to Equiniti they valued each share at 23 pence. I
am fairly sure that they were reading the dollar amount as pence. This gave the false impression that the London shares were a fraction of the value of the NYSE listing.

I have taken some more adivce and will be contacting Equiniti to get a written valutaton.

Again thnks for your help.

Mabbi

Sorry, M&G demerged in 2019.

No idea where I got 2017 from.