Ali Baba ISA wrapper criteria

[Bailey2k4]

I was just wondering, how comes we can’t have access to Ali Baba in an ISA wrapper? Whilst I appreciate that some Chinese stocks and ADRs mean they aren’t ISA compliant.

However multiple of your other rival platforms allow access to it via an ISA and T212 does. So surely that shows its still possible?

Is there a difference for a reason and is this something that could be reassessed again?

[AdamL (Adam)]

No, they screwed up and forced all their users to sell all their ADRs and rebuy in a GIA. It was a whole big mess.

[Bailey2k4]

That’s not true. Asked my friend to check again and it’s possible to buy baba in the ISA. Also when you check the T212 stocks universe online and click the ISA tab it shows up on the list available as well. It’s also definitely up to date as well as it shows Nio only in the gia and not in isa yet baba is in both.

[J4ipod94]

@finki has shone some light on this dilemna

Finki

@littlefinger Do you want to know each providers ISA-eligibility marker or “my” assessment of the stocks ISA-eligibility? I ask as (as always) the water is murky for a handful of stocks. Take Alibaba for instance. Recent listing in HK after years of listing primarily on some dodgy exchange and launching ADRs off the back of it via NY. Under the old structure the primary exchange would not be recogonised so would NOT be eligible. However with the HK listing looking like it is “primary” I woul…

[Bailey2k4]

So in essence there’s no real answer? It’s the wild West? Sounds like T212 allow it and HL where as Freetrade and II don’t. So it’s pretty much subjective and in theory there must be some reasons why FT could indeed include it yet choose not to?

[simmyx98 (Simran Marwaha)]

Some brokers definitely allow it to be held in an ISA. The fact it’s an ADR shouldn’t really make a difference as you can hold stocks like Sony and ASML which appear to be marked as ADR’s.

Not sure on the reasoning behind it tbh.

[AdamL (Adam)]

Ah okay, I thought the reasoning was not being able to hold other currencies in ISA but I don’t know how it works with ADRs. If finki says its okay it probably is.

FT did mess up with Li Auto at first but they paid my FX to swap it to GIA.

[finki]

Baba is a case in point of why ISA compliance is an ongoing/dynamic operation. Pre mid 2020 you would have purchased the NYSE ADRs and the ‘parent’ Ordinary shares were not listed on a qualifying exchange at the time. This made BABA ineligible for ISA inclusion. However, mid 2020 BABA appears to have genuinely listed its Ordinary Shares (on which the ADRs are based) on HK trading under the ISIN quoted in the SEC filings. The FinKi API picked this up and flagged a change in ISA status.

[Bailey2k4]

@Viktor @Freetrade_Team is this something that could be looked at again by Freetrade. Or is this how you envisage Baba to remain classified on the platform going forward. As Finki had eluded to there are multiple other platforms that have found Baba to conform with ISA inclusion criteria?