Despite compliance with applicable SEC due diligence regulations and unclaimed property laws, corporations will still be left holding accounts whose owners remain “lost” and whose accounts will eventually be considered abandoned and will become an escheat burden. These “lost owner” accounts therefore represent:
Corporations
- Escheat obligations
- Liabilities
- Unnecessary costs
- Fraud and audit risks
- Loss of revenue
- Loss of your account owner relationship
All of the above can negatively affect your corporate reputation.
We understand that most holders prefer to reunite with their lost owners rather than escheat their accounts and lose the hard earned client relationship. Escheatment not only represents a burden, cost and risk to holders but it disenfranchises the owner from their asset and can cause all manner of complications and frustrations for the owner/heirs. One concern is the possible loss in revenue (as many state holders liquidate stocks) in the event stock values increase but the owners are left the value from the date of sale by the new third party state holder.
P.I.L.L.A.R.S™ Program
Pre-escheat International Lost Owner Location & Asset Reunification Service™
Holders must bear the burden of dealing with lost owners and/or heirs. However, either overlooking or subjecting foreign account data to the same due diligence efforts as used for US missing owner accounts is ineffective for obvious reasons. International missing owner accounts require a foreign expert. Let our PILLARS™ program reunite and resolve these lost owner account issues.
Click to enlarge!
A lost owner may be deceased in which case their heir(s) need to be identified, contacted and established as the legal heir(s). There are many instances where even heirs of deceased owners have died so the reunification involves multiple heirs and estates spanning more than one country. Loss of contact with an owner could also be due to; bad, outdated or incomplete addresses, owners unaware of the escheat risks and the dormant status of their account(s), misunderstanding the messages that do get through and/or get sidetracked with everyday personal and professional lives, etc.
Through our proprietary PILLARS™ program we help our corporate clients gain insight into their foreign unclaimed property data, and we provide options and support to ensure as many lost foreign owners as possible are located and reunited with their account(s). We have never processed a single fraudulent claim in over 40 years. We help corporations ensure the legal owners or their legal heir(s) are established as claimants.
We provide a niche service to corporations who seek assistance on a special assignment(s) of foreign lost owner accounts that remain unresolved. We provide a customized service tailored to enhance efforts you may already have in place which fit your team and your account owners specific needs. Our efforts often exceed regular due diligence and our client’s expectations.
If you have previously or plan to escheat accounts in the future, your corporation has better options. By locating and reuniting owners with their unclaimed account, your company can reduce liabilities and costs.
At the core of our services is our understanding of the need to treat your shareholders as you would want to be treated.
Global Shareholder Services® has been reuniting foreign owners and heirs for over 40 years on behalf of various Fortune 500 holders, transfer agents, Trustees, Liquidators, Courts, shareholder and unclaimed property companies, law firms, plan fiduciaries and sponsors, etc. Allow us to discuss your foreign unclaimed property options with you. Beat escheat™ with The Foreign Unclaimed Property Experts™.
Our work is a win-win for you and your client. As our testimonials and client feedback reflect time and time again, Global Shareholder Services® is the leading global shareholder reconnection service provider.
We provide a niche service to corporations who prefer to reunite with their lost owners or participants rather than lose them to escheat. Our clients see the benefits of reuniting and preserving formerly lost account owner relationships. We help holders fulfill corporate duty of prudence and loyalty while avoiding risks of; audits, fines, penalties and/or fraud, and the various costs associated with unclaimed lost owner accounts.
Through PILLARS™ we provide a bespoke expert foreign lost owner location and asset reunification service that is tailored to comply with, and often exceed, regulations in the interests of both the holder and the missing owners/participants or beneficiaries.
How May We Help You?
Click on a section to expand it.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions are another very real cause of shareholders and accounts becoming disconnected. Statistics show that approximately, 40-50% of shareholders exchange their shares very quickly and a significant percentage will follow shortly thereafter in the short to medium term. However, a significant 10-20% of the original shareholder base will remain unexhanged in the long term.
Global Shareholder Services® has proven to be successful in targeting and resolving these problematic 10-20% of shareholder accounts that remain persistently lost or missing. We work with our clients to elicit the required corporate action from the foreign owner and heirs. Oftentimes you face tight timeframes to work within and we can help you meet those deadlines.
Reasons Accounts Remain Stubbornly Unresolved for You
Our society has become truly global. Shareholders move, marry, divorce and die worldwide. Postal forwarding services are shorter and add to the mix, foreign names and addresses, language and cultural barriers, the lack of Freedom of Information Acts in most countries, stricter privacy laws, and the task you face in locating them overseas is a daunting one alone! Even after locating the rightful owner, you need to ensure the communication with lost foreign owners and heirs is effective, so that they understand their need to act and achieve a desired corporate action(s).
Unlike efforts to locate lost US owners, locating foreign owners is far more challenging and requires an individualized and customized case specific research effort. These types of accounts are more problematic and cost prohibitive for holders to resolve themselves. However, Global Shareholder Services® has developed its proprietary PILLARS™ program (Pre-escheat International Lost Owner Location & Asset Reunification Service) over four decades of doing this work globally. Our unique industry leading foreign lost owner location service has reunited over $500 million of unclaimed property, while processing not a single fraudulent claim.
Escheat
It is well documented that unclaimed property is a significant source of revenue for US State governments. Any Holder of unclaimed accounts faces a very real risk of audits, potential fines, and penalties for incorrectly reporting or not reporting unclaimed accounts. There have been many reports and newspaper articles attesting to the increasing aggressiveness of US States in their pursuit of unclaimed property.
In using our services, you will:
- Retain more shareholder accounts.
- Reduce the number of accounts to be escheated.
- Reduce risk, liabilities and costs.
- Promote your corporate reputation.
- Improve your shareholder communication where currently ‘silence’ persists.
- Decrease your reputational risk, in an arena where shareholder activism is increasing for publically traded corporations.
We have and continue to work with corporations, law firms, transfer agents, etc., to reunite holders with their lost account owners/heirs. We recognize that these are YOUR shareholder accounts, and you have a corporate, regulatory and moral responsibility to reunite your lost shareholders with their accounts. We also understand holders are in a difficult position and bear a significant burden to escheat accounts or face audits, etc. Our work benefits you and your shareholders alike. We believe and trust you agree that your shareholders would prefer to hear directly from you than find their accounts are now held by a previously unknown third party, i.e. a US state unclaimed property office.
Global Shareholder Services™ is the perfect solution to your lost shareholder account issues.