Hi, not sure if this is the best forum to post this, but here's my question. I'm looking for information on the roles, responsibilities, governing regulations, industry structure, etc. on transfer agents, preferably in a Canadian context. I've done some googling and visited some transfer agent sites but haven't come across much detail. Would anyone here be able to point me in the right direction, or be able to offer up some resources I could look at? Thanks
Not Canadian, but pretty good definitions and roles of transfer agents. Someplace to start. http://www.sec.gov/divisions/marketreg/mrtransfer.shtml Don
I'm wondering if I have this right. You were in a canadian stock that turned shady and the transfer agent being in canada too is crooked and nobody in america is doing a damn thing. Typical of scam stocks these days operating from Canada. According to the SEC, transfer agent managers are to be finger printed. Doesn't change anything though if the SEC doesn't enforce.
I agree Bulls, I have had nothing but terrible experiences with transfer agents and the outright lies they tell. I tried to get the broker involved, everyone tries to point fingers at everyone else, then they all hide behind the arbitration clause. I wrote to the SEC, they said they would write a letter, which they copied to me. The transfer agent wrote back with basically, "too bad" and the SEC said "We tried". F 'em all. F'em all in the rear.
I'm shocked you even got the SEC to do anything. Every trader or investor eventually learns the darker side of this game and this is one of the ways people get screwed. It's really sad. Gotta check to even see if the transfer agent exists where they say because the latest scam is a virtual office in a prominent office tower to only find out they and 145 other businesses exist out of the same suite. Why the scams exist more in canada now -I don't know, but the company runners and agents sure figured out a good system exploit and that is list here, scam from Canada, bank accounts attached run toward eastern europe. The least the SEC could do is halt a trading shell, but nooooo the brokers like NITE make cake so the scam continues.
Not even close, I'm doing research for for my job. What I'm trying to find out is the level of detail of their recordkeeping of shareholders. Also what markets do they cover other than listed equities? Do they cover OTC equities? How about debt markets? Derivatives? Or are derivatives covered by the clearing corp., which in Canada is CDCC. Do large private companies use transfer agents (useful info. for me when a private company gets bought out)? There are more questions. Thanks Don for the reply.
I've taken several companies public, and from small "pink sheet" start-ups (bulletin board) to Nasdaq listed stocks use Transfer agents. It's only when you have securities held in the "Street Name" (as with a broker) that you rarely see tranfer agent intervention. It's the taking physical possession of certificates when TA's are used. Don
From what I udnerstand TA's are used whether or not there's physical transfer of certs. (which rarely ever happens anymore). One of the main functions of a TA is to record the registered owner of the stock (which is what Im interested in, not the actual owner as Im interested in aggregate data), whether it be in street name or registered in the actual name of the shareholder. So for most listed equities they'll be using TA's to perform this, and other related functions. But, do non-listed incorporated companies have any need for this sort of recordkeeping, and do TA's handle it for them? How about bonds? Lets say XYZ corp. floats an issue of debt in the US, will they use TA's to keep a record of registered bondholders (used to know who and where to send coupon payments), or do they keep that record themselves? Or is it some other source?