Investors Portal
Summary
Background
Under § 67 (4) of the German Stock Corporation Act (Aktiengesetz – AktG), financial institutions involved in the custody chain for registered shares are obliged to provide the company responsible for the maintenance of the share register with the information required (shareholder data).
The CASCADE-RS system is available for the transmission of such data via Clearstream Banking1.
Since the 2013 annual general meeting (AGM) season, those customers who have not previously supplied shareholder data to the share register via CASCADE-RS can use the Investors Portal in order to meet these statutory requirements.
Link to the Investors Portal
Instructions for re-registrations and position transfers can be uploaded for processing in CASCADE-RS via the web-based Investors Portal as Excel or CSV files.
The Investors Portal is available via the following link:
http://investors-portal.clearstream.com/
Access, registration process and deadline
Before using the Investors Portal, the attached "Order for access to the Investors Portal service" and the "Legitimation order for access to the Investors Portal service" must be completed, signed and then forwarded to CBF, Registered Shares. Users should allow a period of at least 15 business days for the technical setup and activation of the account, following the receipt of the access request at CBF.
In order to be able to use the Investors Portal, each user must register separately. Users should expect approximately two to three days for the account to be activated. The Investors Portal is then available to the user. Further details are available in the attached "Investors Portal User Guide" (in English).
Transactions types in the Investors Portal
The following transaction types can be transmitted via the Investors Portal:
- Re-registration (transaction type 1)
- Position transfer (transaction type 9)
- Twin instruction2 (transaction type 5)
It is possible to deliver various instruction types within the same file.
Volumes and deadlines
Files uploaded via the Investors Portal must contain at least one record. The maximum number is 1,000 records.
Files successfully uploaded by 16:30 will be processed on the same day.
Exception: If a fourth optional allocation is set up for the respective issuer, for example, for a limited period before the annual general meeting, files successfully uploaded by 18:20 will be processed on the same day.
If an issuer uses the fourth allocation this will be indicated in the announcements for the annual general meeting of this issuer. Particularities that need to be taken into account with respect to the value date for position transfers within the fourth allocation are detailed in Announcement RS18133.
The opening times of the Investors Portal are the same as for CASCADE. For further information on the public holiday regulation please refer to respective announcements.
Settlement/processing date
When using the Investors Portal, it should be noted that re-registrations, position transfers and twin instructions can be transmitted with or without entering a date in the "Settlement/processing date" field. Details on the processing of the relevant instruction types are given below.
Re-registration
If no date is provided for the "Settlement/processing date", the re-registration date will be considered as the date of receipt.
If a re-registration date is provided, the re-registration will be done on this date up to the processing in the last allocation.
Position transfers
If no date is provided for "Settlement/processing date", the settlement date for the position transfer will be considered as the date of receipt.
If a date is provided for "Settlement/processing date", the position transfer will be processed on this date.
Detailed information, particularly in relation to the registration closing day before annual general meetings, are available in the relevant announcement for the annual general meeting of the respective company.
Twin instruction
CASCADE-RS generates one re-registration and one position transfer from each of these instructions.
As a result, for example, shareholders can be registered in the share register before annual general meetings to receive invitations to the annual general meeting and to exercise their voting rights. Unregistered positions can be created again on the date designated in the instruction. The advantage of the Twin Instruction is that it makes it easier to instruct the position transfer.
If no date is provided for "Settlement/processing date", both re-registrations and position transfers are created on the settlement date or re-registration date corresponding to the date of receipt.
If a date is provided for "Settlement/processing date", this date will be used for the position transfer to be created. The date of receipt of the twin instruction will be used as the re-registration date.
Note on premature position transfers
Irrespective of the instruction type, the position transfer must be assigned a value date which ensures that positions registered for the annual general meeting are not removed from the share register before the end of the last re-registration day/technical record date.
Detailed information in connection with the last date for re-registration and value date before the annual general meetings are available in the announcement for the annual general meeting of the respective company.
Information on feedback from re-registrations
Feedback from the share registers for CASCADE-RS re-registration instructions will continue to be provided in the existing reports via the usual communication channels (for example, SWIFT, File Transfer or CASCADE Online). This applies to both, instructions transmitted via the Investors Portal as well as those transmitted to CBF via other communication channels (for example, SWIFT, File Transfer or CASCADE Online).
"Feedback from the share register" report
The "Feedback from the share register" report will only contain information from the share register if the feedback on the status is "rejected" or "confirmed", and in the latter case also the the shareholder number. The structure of the report is the same as the "Investors Portal template", also available as an attachment. The feedback status is inserted at the end of the respective instruction line. The status information corresponds to the CASCADE Online status reports:
- "RB" (confirmed),
- "RT" / "RA" (technical / rejected by the share register)
- "RTD" (feedback with different shareholder number) and,
- where indicated, the reason for rejection sent by the issuer.
The shareholder number is inserted in the corresponding column.
This report only shows instructions transmitted to CBF via the Investors Portal. The report is created twice a day after each processing of feedback from the share register. This takes place at approx. 07:00 and 15:30 each day.
The report is supplied as a CSV file in the CBF Fileservice.
Customers who would like to use the CBF Fileservice should contact Clearstream Banking Client Services Connectivity for the purpose of registration (if they do not already use this service).
Structure of the "Feedback from the share register" report
Instructions sent via the Investors Portal as well as those sent by other communications channels remain unchanged in the existing reports.
Instructions entered via the Investors Portal are treated in exactly the same way as those entered via SWIFT, EDI etc. This means that rejected instructions are deleted immediately from the online display once feedback is processed; the rejection as well as the reason for rejection can therefore only be traced via this report (or the existing reports).
Instruction data in this report file is displayed based on the data definitions in CASCADE-RS and therefore does not necessarily correspond to the display at the time of transmission, for example, empty postcode fields are returned with zeroes. However, records of this report file – for example rejected instructions – can be reused as input for the upload tool function after any necessary correction and deletion of the feedback information at the end of the record.
Only the re-registration part is displayed in this report for "twin instructions" (combination of re-registration and position transfer), instruction type "5", because issuers only provide feedback on this item. As a result, these instructions are shown in the report files with instruction type "1" (re-registration).
The amount of feedback to the share register may not correspond to the actual number of re-registrations transmitted via the Investors Portal, for example, if there is no direct feedback from the share register on the status of individual re-registrations. In such cases, the pending feedback is provided immediately after receipt and processing of the feedback.
Receiving additional CBF reports
CBF recommends its customers that they continue to receive feedback via the existing communication channels (for example, SWIFT, File Transfer or CASCADE Online).
CBF offers this additional report to enable its customers to align their internal processes to the standard reporting of CBF if they have not already done so.
Note: Delays may occur in the provision of this additional report via Fileservice, particularly when processing larger volumes.
Prices
Instructions sent to CBF via the Investors Portal are charged in accordance with the Clearstream Banking Fee Schedule. All prices are quoted plus statutory VAT.
The subscription of the "Feedback from the share register" report is currently free of charge.
Contingency arrangement for the Investors Portal
If the Investors Portal is temporarily unavailable, customers should contact the CBF Registered Shares Team (see contact details below) so that the data to be uploaded can be sent by email to registeredshares@clearstream.com.
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1. Clearstream Banking AG (CBF), registered office at Mergenthalerallee 61, 65760 Eschborn, Germany, registered with the Commercial Register of the District Court in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, under number HRB 7500.
2. Twin instructions combine the instruction to generate the re-registration and a corresponding position transfer.