Tracing Our Missing Shareholders (ProSearch)

There are various reasons why cash entitlements may not have been claimed by shareholders. Some of the most common reasons are:

• a shareholder not notifying the Santander Nominee Service of a change of address;
• the beneficiaries or executors of an estate not being aware of the holding; or
• a shareholder simply forgetting or being uncertain about their shareholding(s).

ProSearch is a subsidiary of Equiniti Financial Services Limited, the providers of the Santander Nominee Service. They specialise in the research, identification and the reuniting of unclaimed assets to individuals and their legal representatives. They have a 30 year history of providing asset reunification solutions and have worked with many FTSE 100 and 250 clients on similar projects. You can view their website at www.prosearchassets.com.

The Claim Forms are designed to make the recovery of entitlements as easy as possible. Shareholders should follow the instructions provided and return the signed and dated form (along with any necessary documents) to ProSearch in the reply-paid envelope provided.

Any claim processed via ProSearch will be subject to the deduction of fees, details of which are included in the letters sent by ProSearch. ProSearch charges a fee to cover the work they do in tracing and reuniting people with their unclaimed entitlements.

Should you choose to use this voluntary service there will be an administration fee of 10%, plus VAT, of the total amount of the entitlement (cash and share value recovered). ProSearch will deduct all fees from the dividends recovered. In no circumstances will the fees charged exceed the value of the dividends recovered, and no shares will be sold. In some cases this may mean that no cash is returned to you once your records have been updated.

As the shareholder records held by Equiniti are maintained separately from any customer relationship that you may have with Santander, it is not possible to share any customer information with Equiniti. So even though your customer records are up to date, your shareholding records may not be.

Ultimately shareholders need to keep their contact details up to date. Having dividends paid into your bank account mitigates the risk when you forget to do so. Even if mail is not received, funds appearing on a bank statement can alert the shareholder, relative, financial advisor, carer or executor that the shareholding exists and avoid shareholdings becoming inactive and entitlements remaining uncashed. You can find details on how to receive your dividends by direct payment, rather than by cheque here.

If you've received a Claim Form and would like more information about how to reactivate your shareholding, or to have historic cash entitlements reissued by Equiniti, and find out about the fees and document requirements to do this, you can contact Equiniti directly by using the details shown on the right-hand side of this page.

If you have received a Claim Form and would like more information, you can contact ProSearch on the number included in the communication on the UK freephone number provided, and lines are open 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Monday to Friday (excluding UK public holidays).

Alternatively you can use the contact details on the right-hand side on this page.