Corporate Actions- CAs- Questions and Answers

A corporate action (CA) is an event that affects a company and can be initiated by the board of directors and agreed by its shareholders, and if it is an optional event, may require action on the part of the investor or the investment management firm that is holding the security on behalf of clients.

Mandatory and optional events

In the context of corporate actions, a mandatory event is a type of corporate action that is executed automatically, without requiring investors to make any decisions or take any actions. On the other hand, an optional event is a type of corporate action that requires investors to elect between two or more options. 

Optional events always have a default option, which will be applied in the absence of any instructions being received by the stipulated deadline date for that event.

We send CA notifications for anything impacting the clients' holdings including:

•    Fund mergers and demergers

•    Fund closures

•    Open offers

•    Rights issues

•    Mergers and acquisitions

•    Bonus issues

•    Share class conversions

•    Share consolidation and splits

•    Liquidations

We do not send notifications for CA that do not have a material impact on the client such as name changes. We are reactive in Proxy Voting but any corporate event that is subject to an AGM would include the details of this meeting within the notification provided should a client wish to vote. We would raise a Freshdesk ticket to the adviser/ platform to let them know of the corporate action as soon as we have received the notification.

You can see an example of a CA notification below and we would always attach a list of the clients that hold that instrument

Good afternoon, 

We have received a notification from Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc regarding fundraising. On 15 July 2022, Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings plc (the “Company”) announced its intention to raise approximately £653 million by way of a strategic investment of £78.0 million by The Public Investment Fund and a rights issue, the proceeds of which are expected to be approximately £575 million (together, the “Capital Raise”).

The Capital Raise is subject to shareholder approval at an upcoming general meeting to be held at 10.00 a.m. on Thursday 8 September 2022. The Notice of the General Meeting, included in the shareholder circular published by the Company on 22 August 2022 (the “Circular”), is now available on the Aston Martin Lagonda website under the "Shareholder Meetings" tab on www.astonmartinlagonda.com/investors/shareholder-information. The terms of the offer under the Rights Issue will be set out in the Prospectus which is expected to be published on or around 5 September 2022.

Please see attached list of clients impacted. 

Please see the attached official notification for more details.

You will be notified via a Freshdesk ticket of any instances where a response is required. Please respond on the ticket noting the applicable option they wish to take and by the deadline date noted within the ticket. This allows the team to prepare the instructions and submit before the market deadline date.

Details on Corporate Actions can be found on the Knowledge Base - Corporate Actions : Knowledge base