Dear Client,
Following the adoption of the regulations of the Company Law Amendment Act 2011, the Austrian Stock Corporation Act states that shares issued shall be converted to registered shares with the below exceptions:
- General Exception (par. 10(1) Stock Corporation Act):
Shares can remain bearer shares, if issued by a listed company (as defined in par. 3 Stock Corporation Act) or if, according to the respective issuer´s Articles of Association, its shares shall become listed.
- Individual Exception:
An issuer, whose shares were tradable on the third market of the Vienna SE on 1 August 2011, shall be considered listed within the meaning of par. 10 Stock Corporation Act.
As a result, non-listed Austrian companies were forced to exchange their bearer shares into registered shares (par. 9 (1) Stock Corporation Act) until the end of the transition period on 31 December 2013.
According to par. 262(28) Stock Corporation Act, all bearer shares that have not been transformed to registered shares by 1 January 2014 had to be converted to interim certificates that will be declared null and void at close of business 30 September 2014. Consequently, these positions will be removed from the clients’ accounts by the CSD who will only keep the original certificates for documentation purposes.
A list of the affected shares can be found under the following link: Bearer Share Certificates that are regarded as Registered Shares by Force of Law
Impact on investors: UniCredit Bank Austria will withdraw the respective shares from the accounts of their clients worthless. All clients holding such positions on their accounts will be informed separately by SWIFT.