Hi all, I currently hold shares in NIOX which are currently offering a tender to buy back shares at an attractive price. I have received the offer through HL yesterday which I also use, but not FT.
I have been on to FT chat (customer service) and they are not sure and passed my enquiry on to the Corporate Actions team, but they say there is long lead time for replies. The cut off date is 14th October, so I donāt have long to opt in.
My question is, does FT not notify shareholders of Corporate Actions, I thought this was a standard process offered by all DIY platforms?
Hopefully. I find it shocking that FT consider themselves the ābest trading platformā without offering this basic feature that costs their customers money. It is like a two legged stool, somewhat useful to lean against, but rather unstable.
Ok, so FT have come back to me and confirmed they do not support āTender Offersā so Iām out of pocket again with this stock. Not enough time to repurchase via another platform
21.2.2. you waive your right to exercise any corporate actions in relation to your Investments; and
21.2.3. you agree that we or the legal holder of your Investments may exercise (or not exercise) any corporate actions at its discretion. That discretion will not take into account your individual wishes or circumstances, and whether and how those rights are exercised may not result in your preferred outcome.
21.3. In relation to securities issued in the US, we will provide you with the ability to participate in general meetings via a proxy voting service. This will enable you to vote on corporate governance decisions where the issuer of the securities needs to seek shareholder consent. These are called āmandatory corporate actionsā and include things like voting at general meetings, board elections, mergers and acquisitions and changes to company bylaws. We will share your personal data with third parties to the extent necessary to provide you with this service, in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
21.4. If you become entitled to any proceeds (such as dividends) or non-monetary benefits (such as additional Investments) as a result of any corporate action in relation to the Investments in your Freetrade Account(s), weāll take all reasonable steps to collect such proceeds or benefits and credit your Freetrade Account(s) accordingly.
So FT in essence does not support ANY corporate actions, dividends, stock splits anything. You have no rights to dividends nor any other corporate actions. They say that they will take all āreasonable stepsā so hopefully dividends are safe and stock splits should also proceed, but they are hiding a lot behind āreasonable stepsā as I fail to see how there are no reasonable steps to collect funds from a user to partake in an issuance of additional shares. Annoying my complaint was found to be unsupported. when unfortunately it was more a misreading of the complaint and was asking that they update the T&C to explicitly state that all dividends would be paid and all stock splits etc would occur.
Great findā¦ But terrible outcome I have never had any issues with stock splits, just delayed Dividends. Which have gotten much better of late. Cheers
Likewise I am aware of the short coming in the corporate actions dept and as pointed out by others itās not core to their product, I have raised a few communications with the FT corporate team, however I have normally found them to be helpful when prompted, I wish I could say the same of HL who didnāt even know when Lloyds were recalling their preference shares LLPE this year and I had a substantial amount invested in the share and only found out because I also had some directly via LLOYDS.
