I own three nonsponsored ADRs, and the liquidity of them is relatively poor: Royal Bank of Scotland [RBSPF], Dorel Industries, and Lafarge SA. I have an opportunity now to improve the liquidity of Royal Bank of Scotland now. They have recently created a sponsored ADR [ticker RBS]. I wrote Investor Relations at RBS to see if I could exchange my nonsponsored ADR shares for the new sponsored shares. This is what they wrote back:
Dear Mr Merkel,
Thank you for your email regarding your RBS shareholding.
In order to convert your RBSPF ADRs your broker will need to contact our US depositary and paying agent, the Bank of New York who can transfer your shares to their CREST account and issue you with new ADRs. Contact details for the Bank of New York conversion desk are as follows:
Jaswinder Goraya or Rubely Marte – tel no 212 815 4502 / 2724
Your broker will also need to advise the Bank of New York’s Manchester office of the deposit into their CREST account.
Contact details:
Luke Owen or Mike Ashcroft – tel no. 0161 725 3433 / 3438
Please note that Stamp Duty Tax will need to be paid on each share as well as an ADR conversion fee. With the US share price currently at US$9.24 the conversion fee would be 4 cents per ADR (Please see attached Standard Fee schedule).
If you require further information please do not hesitate to contact me.
So, I contacted Fidelity, and we are doing this. One down, two to go. Perhaps my next move is to contact Dorel Industries and see if I can exchange my illiquid ADRs for shares that trade in Toronto.
Full disclosure: long RBSPF, DIIB, and LFRGY (pink sheets all)
After writing this, I decided to ping Dorel. Let’s see what they say.
You could always just mark them to model …
Can you keep us updated on this? I have some Lafarge.
I found it interesting that there was no news about the addition of the Y. It just happened. Kind of like my Ducati stock a few months back. You think a press release would be in order for existing shareholders or something.
cheers
Scottrade handles both pink sheets and Canadian equivalents. I wanted to purchase TCMRF & HBMFF and was offered Canadian shares TCM & HBM. So far it is only for Canada and I have to do it as broker assisted ($29 / trade). TCM & HBM have a much better bid-ask than TCMRF & HBMFF.