Selling Verizon and Vodafone shares - Eircom legacy

masculinist

I am finally dealing with mountains of paperwork on all sorts of issues in my life.

I seem to hold Verizon shares in a nominee account of some sort and I have Vodafone shares in cert form.

Whats the cheapest way to dispose of them and what do I have to do about this ?

I read somewhere that the Verizon shares may involve a lot of paperwork with the US. I thought the fact they are in some sort of nominee account should make selling easier ? What sort of paperwork will this be ? I am an Irish resident who originally invested in Eircom.

Whats the cheapest way to sell both ? I have enough of them both to make selling worthwhile.

How can I check how many I have ? Im worried a cert or statement of shares could be missing. It probably isnt missing but Id like to check. Will the broker be able to tell me ?

masculinist

its all sorted . Mods please delete this thread.

Logo

Hi masculinist. Just as a matter of interest - how did you eventually deal with your Verizon and Vodafone shares?

masculinist

Logo wrote: »

Hi masculinist. Just as a matter of interest - how did you eventually deal with your Verizon and Vodafone shares?

Hi

With regard to Verizon,

I had to fill in a form called ''Form W-8BEN Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding and Reporting (Individuals)''

and also another form, some sort of withdrawal form which deals with the method of payment and the conversion from US Dollars to Euro. I forget the name of that form but its all located on this page :

https://www-us.computershare.com/Investor/help/PrintableForms


The customer service was very helpful over the phone and walked me through filling it in.

Theres a charge to sell and a charge to convert the proceeds into Euro. (something like 15 euro per holding conversion) and then something like 20 dollars to sell plus a small charge per share. I cant remember in detail. Im just glad to see the back of them .My proceeds will be a few grand so I can bear the charges. I wrote a letter instructing them to only sell the shares when the tax clearance is given from the IRS and I set out a minimum price in my letter.

if you sell the shares without sending a W-8BEN to the US IRS , then theres a non refundable tax of 28% if I remember correctly. I should have filled the damn thing in years ago and it wouldnt have been deducted from my reinvested dividends.
Vodafone is easier,. I hope ....

Like the Verizon , the Vodafone holding was a nominee account so I managed to sell them all for a great local price but I had to wait for a verification code to arrive in the post before I could attempt a withdrawal. It arrived. The code was accepted online but the interface was buggy and asked again and again for it .
I called the registrar and apparently , they just transfer the money to you after the clearance date anyway and that the bureaucratic obstacles are in opening a share trading account , not in selling shares you've owned for years. I need to call back again and make absolutely sure. Either way I expect a few grand from Vodafone too.

Now if I could only work out my loss at the end , then I could see if it was worth using that to sell off (reluctantly) some of my Standard Life Shares which I intend to keep long term.

So fingers crossed and hoping that theres no more bureaucratic obstacles to frustrate me.

masculinist

Actually Vodafone shares have held me up some more. The first person I called said the sales proceeds would be bank transferred to me automatically. 2 days later the second person said I had to send in additional proof of identity. This is the exact same bank account I bought Eircom shares with originally.... So its been xpress posted today ... another feckin 11 euro.... I thought Nominee accounts were supposed to make things easier ... *groan*