JOHANNESBURG – A Plettenberg Bay pensioner, who was irate with Nedbank for acquiring his odd-lot shares when he had indicated both in writing and telephonically that he did not want to sell them, claims the bank has agreed to reverse the transaction.
Brian Hogg said yesterday Link Market Services, the share registry and financial services provider that handled shareholder inquiries related to the unbundling of Old Mutual, had informed him that Nedbank had offered to reverse the transaction provided he pay back the money he had been paid for the shares, which he had accepted. Hogg confirmed earlier this week that he did not fill in the required forms to make an election to retain or sell his shares and conveyed his decision that he wanted to retain his Nedbank shares to Link Market Services via email and telephonically. He questioned why he had to fill in forms to confirm he wanted to retain ownership of his Nedbank shares when these shares belonged to him and wanted Nedbank to “reverse this illegal sale”.
Kedibone Molopyane, the head of group media relations at Nedbank, said yesterday that Nedbank would only be able to provide comment and know the final way forward today when Link Market Services finalised its arrangement with Hogg.
Nedbank announced in October that it intended to buy back shares for cash from eligible shareholders who owned less than 100 of its shares following the finalisation of the Old Mutual unbundling process. This followed Old Mutual reducing its majority holding in Nedbank from about 52percent to 19.9percent, resulting in the number of Nedbank shareholders increasing from about 20000 to about 500000 shareholders, with an estimated 1.5percent of them owning less than 100 shares. These odd-lot holders were given the option of selling their holding to Nedbank at a 5percent premium or retaining their shares.
However, they had to make an election if they wanted to retain their Nedbank shares and those odd-lot holders who did not were automatically regarded as having accepted the odd-lot offer and chosen to dispose of their Nedbank shares to Nedbank and receive the cash consideration.
Nedbank’s odd-lot offer complied with the JSE’s listing requirements provided certain conditions were met. The bank confirmed this week that it had repurchased about 7.05million of its ordinary shares.