When mergers, acquisitions and other corporate actions occur, securities that must be exchanged by the owner often are not. Shareholders move without notifying the issuing corporation, are confused by the exchange documents, have lost their securities or are deceased and their heirs are not aware these securities exist. In these situations companies can rely upon UPRR’s Maximum Owner Return (MOR®) program.
The MOR® program is designed to locate unexchanged shareholders and motivate them to act. Escheatment can be costly and risky for both the issuing corporation and the shareholder. Throughout the process, our staff coordinates all MOR® activities among the issuer, the exchange agent and the shareholder to maximize owner contact and ensure a seamless process for all parties involved.
How MOR® Works
UPRR works directly with each company’s exchange agent (or multiple agents, if there are many underlying issues) to identify impacted shareholders. With the agent and issuer, we jointly develop a letter of transmittal to mail to each shareholder. These letters fully disclose in understandable language the terms of the corporate action, the property value and steps that need to be taken to ensure proper exchange. UPRR monitors shareholder response, coordinates the processing of the returned shareholder documentation and responds to any shareholders who submit incomplete or inaccurate documents. Informative outbound telephone calls are carefully placed to aid shareholders and answer any questions that arise. All security-related transactions are handled but UPRR’s affiliated broker dealer, UPRR Securities, LLC. UPRR Securities is a registered broker-dealer member of FINRA, SIPC.
The MOR® program also employs a series of critical location efforts that leverage more than 375 data sources to determine current addresses and identify decedent accounts. The decedent accounts are then subject to advanced search algorithms and logic-based technology to identify a responsible next of kin. Once reasonable efforts to locate shareholders have been exhausted, accounts of unexchanged shareholders will be escheated.
To date, UPRR has located and returned billions of dollars in property to millions of shareholders. There is no cost to the issuer and shareholders incur a nominal fee for the service.
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“We set the needs and interests of the shareholders as our top priority. UPRR’s expertise in communicating efficiently helps us dramatically as they interact with our clients’ shareholders in a professional yet friendly way.”
- Robert G. Pearson, President & CEO, Illinois Stock Transfer
