You can obtain the shares that have moved to suspense account with relative ease
The shareholder was never in India. He is a foreign service officer and he got posted everywhere in the world.
He, during his youth, invested in a blue-chip company.
The investment has grown into a sizable value
Investor was obviously aware of the investment but had no way of tracking it. Converting it in useable form is another matter.
Our team reached out to the address available in the database. No brownie points for guessing it right. Yes, he was obviously not traceable to the address given. Multiple enquires revealed that his wife was associated with a religious institution.
After first break, we just got the name of the wife and we traced her down to the US. We wrote to her and introduced our services. After a protracted due diligence, the shareholder gave us the contract and provided us with the power of attorney.
We checked up with the Registrars to find the details of split shares and bonus shares. To our pleasant surprise the registrars gave the details and said that shares are in suspense.
Suspense shares are different animals. By law, the company needs to send physical shares to the last known address. If it is returned, undelivered, a specific procedure follows. Company has to send the shares three times and send reminders. If they are returned undelivered they will have to move the shares to a separate Demat account.
This type of movement is possible predominantly in case of split shares. When a split happens, old share is cancelled, and a new share certificate is issued. Suspense is not possible in case of original shares since they have in fact been delivered.
Generally, if the shareholder has a demat account, we can get the shared moved directly to demat account.
That’s exactly what we ended up doing.
Idea of providing this case study is two fold.
If you have shares in physical form and you have not received the split share chance are it is in suspense. Suspense shares are generally not affected by IEPF regulations too much. Contact us if you think you have similar requirements.
Shares in question were hardly Rs 15 lacs. This is just to underscore the point, we are not big money chasers in hope of an obscene percentage of fee.
