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Asset Recovery Services

Creating opportunities to build stronger and more enduring investor relationships.

Overview

Knowing who your investors are and reuniting unclaimed funds with their rightful owners are fundamental corporate responsibilities. They are also extremely labour-intensive and time-consuming undertakings. This is why so many companies trust LINK Shareholder Services, LLC (LINK) for seamless management of their asset recovery processes. We are recovery specialists and offer a full menu of services, including abandoned property programs, post-merger cleanup, ownership location programs, and lost securityholder searches.

Capabilities

ABANDONED PROPERTY SERVICES

Does your company have the manpower and resources to devote to a comprehensive abandoned property program? Even if you do, is this how you want to allocate your scarce resources? With TSX Trust as your partner, there is no need. TSX Trust will customize and execute an abandoned property solution that meets your company’s specific requirements, provide highly professional service to your securityholders, and ensure full compliance with unclaimed property legislation.

Escheatment Services

Escheatment is the process of transferring lost assets to provincial authorities, with each province having its own rules for when property is officially considered “lost.” Companies are legally required to file annual abandoned property reports with some provinces and to turn over unclaimed property – dividends and interest.

Through our Abandoned Property Services, we carefully monitor each province’s unclaimed property mandates and stay up-to-date on changes to filing requirements and deadlines. We ensure that your company is in full compliance. This includes fulfillment of due diligence requirements to attempt to locate inactive securityholders and, should escheatment become necessary, a complete listing of all property to be turned over to the province.

At TSX Trust, we believe the easiest way to comply with escheatment requirements is to prevent property from becoming abandoned. We work hard to identify, locate, and reunite your securityholders with their assets. Throughout the shareholder location process, we offer high levels of customized support both to your company and to your “lost” securityholders.

Support for Companies

A team of TSX Trust professionals will work directly with your company to develop a shareholder location strategy for identifying and engaging all eligible securityholders. We use our extensive resources to provide an analysis of securityholders, and from there, we develop a customized program notice and communication schedule for re-engaging these individuals.

We carefully track securityholder responses and provide clear instructions for securityholders to follow in claiming their property and updating their accounts. When a letter is returned as undeliverable, we exceed due diligence requirements in attempting to find updated address information. We initiate searches through multiple national databases and send subsequent mailings to possible matches. Essentially, our abandoned property management leaves no stone unturned in attempting to locate securityholders and reunite them with their property.

Support for Security Holders

Security holders become “lost” for a variety of reasons, which include address changes, changes in share ownership through an estate transfer, or uncashed small dividend cheques. Many times a security holder is not even aware that his or her account has become inactive.

We work diligently to locate security holders and to re-engage them through a simple, straightforward process. Every communication includes specific information about how security holders can update their accounts and claim the property that is legally theirs. We also maintain a call centre, staffed by highly trained professionals who provide abandoned property services consulting and can respond to your security holders’ inquiries.

Our goal is to locate every one of our customers’ “lost” security holders, help them reclaim their assets, return them to good standing, and maintain complete records for all outreach attempts.

Post-Merger Cleanup

The aftermath of a corporate merger often includes unclaimed shares or cash along with frustrated securityholders confused about the process and their actual holdings. In some instances, the post-merger integration process can be costly and highly aggravating. TSX Trust prevents the situation from escalating to this point by ensuring that a plan is in place to address all merger-related security transactions. This includes complex account and estate transfer requirements, which can be overlooked in the flurry of merger activity.

Between 10% and 20% of securityholders remain unexchanged months after an acquisition. There are many reasons for this:

  • Change of address
  • Non-receipt of securityholder correspondence
  • Confusion about the exchange process
  • Legal questions that need clarification

Whatever the reason, TSX Trust works with companies to locate unexchanged securityholders and inform them of their options for successfully updating their accounts. To do this, we rely on our first-rate search capabilities, including access to multiple secure databases. Once an individual is located, we initiate contact and follow-up with subsequent outreach until the individual takes the required action.

We are persistent in our efforts. This is because both securityholders and issuers have a stake in share exchanges. For the securityholder, ensuring that accounts are up-to-date eliminates the risk of unclaimed property and helps guarantee receipt of future communications, including dividends and other account information.

For stock issuers, locating and assisting unclaimed property helps avoid the costly and time-consuming unclaimed property process. Issuers also avoid costs associated with maintaining these idle accounts. And perhaps most important, proactively supporting your securityholders in this way sends a positive signal that they are a valued part of your organization.

We designate a team of professionals to work closely with your company to pinpoint your specific needs and to customize a post-merger integration plan. We reach out to all securityholders with accurate and thorough information about what the merger will mean to their assets and to ensure highly efficient execution of all securities transactions. We offer our search service at no additional cost.

Our customized solution will help you achieve meaningful contact with securityholders in several ways that include the following:

  • Identify and assist as many as 80% of unexchanged securityholders in exchanging or selling their shares, thereby reducing securityholder services costs.
  • Identify and minimize risk regarding compliance with escheatment and abandoned property statutes.
  • Provide securityholders with options to easily and voluntarily claim their assets, including comprehensive, understandable information about available options.

Ownership Location Program

While there may be many reasons why a securityholder’s account becomes inactive or lapsed, a company has a strong interest in helping securityholders update those accounts and recover their assets through a property ownership search. By helping securityholders search for unclaimed property, a company can avoid the costly and administrative unclaimed property compliance process. At the same time, a company can demonstrate that it values its securityholders and will work to protect their interests.

Through our Asset Reunification Services, TSX Trust is pleased to offer its Ownership Location Program exclusively to transfer agent clients. We work proactively with companies to prevent securityholders’ assets from reaching the point at which they are considered “abandoned” and subject to provincial or state escheatment mandates. In doing so, we not only help you better serve your securityholders, but we also help you avoid the high costs of unclaimed property compliance and reporting.

TSX Trust offers our ownership search service at no additional cost. As your partner, we recognize the importance of searching for unclaimed shares, and we are here to help you succeed. This is yet another way that TSX Trust's attention to detail and strong sense of partnership set us apart from our competitors.

Lost Securityholder Searches

Lost securityholders pose a challenge to companies in two important ways:

  • Many times a securityholder is not aware that he or she has lost shares, causing frustration and anger when his or her assets have been turned over to the province as unclaimed property.
  • Companies are legally responsible for performing due diligence to try and locate missing securityholders.

No one wins when a securityholder’s assets go unclaimed. The securityholder risks having legally owned property turned over to the province. The issuing corporation faces the time-consuming and costly process of complying with provincial unclaimed property laws. This is why TSX Trust's lost securityholder search service plays an invaluable role in helping locate securityholders and reuniting them with their lost shares, creating a positive outcome for the securityholder and the company.

Lost securityholder planning begins long before our services are actually needed. When you enlist TSX Trust for its asset recovery services, our professionals will work directly with your company to create a customized strategy to address your business’s needs with securityholder identification serving as an important component of the strategy. That way, we are ready should an issue arise.

Our experience and scope of resources have earned us recognition for being a leading lost securityholder service provider, and when you partner with us, you can expect fast results and meticulous recordkeeping. First, our access to multiple databases and tremendous research capabilities greatly expedite the search process. Once an individual is located, our first-class mailing operation will generate timely, personalized correspondence. We track all correspondence sent to newly located securityholders and follow up until we receive a response. Plus, by carefully documenting our processes, we meet unclaimed property statutory requirements and provide a clear paper trail of all securityholder correspondence. Finally, our highly secure technology platform enables seamless transmission of this data to appropriate government agencies.

TSX Trust's Asset Recovery Services offer value to your business in several key ways:

  • Highly cost-efficient, streamlined services
  • Assumed responsibility for all administrative and day-to-day operations. Your company’s direct involvement is minimal
  • Improved securityholder registry and records management
  • Enhanced communication to securityholders, including customized correspondence
  • Facilitated transmission of data to all applicable government agencies
  • Compliance with all statutory, documentation, and recordkeeping requirements
Our Services

Through LINK Asset Reunification Services, TSX Trust offers value to your business in several key ways:

  • Highly cost-efficient, streamlined services
  • Assumed responsibility for all administrative and day-to-day operations. Your company’s direct involvement is minimal.
  • Improved shareholder registry and records management
  • Enhanced communication to shareholders, including customized correspondence
  • Facilitated transmission of data to applicable government agencies
  • Compliance with applicable regulatory recordkeeping requirements

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