I’ve several shares of stock in a huge company.
Recently they split 2 for 1. I recieved notice about mid december.It also said the new shares were being held as book entry.
At years end I recieved my notice of the annual meeting and with it the proxy notice.
The proxy noted my stock shares as before the split.
My question
Does the fact that they are being held as book entry mean I have lost partial control of my stocks (ie) voting rights?
Should I request the actual certificates be sent to me?
Everything is probably fine. The Proxy statement could have been printed up before the stock split. Even if not, your voting interest (i.e., percentage of ownership of the company) stays the same.
Brokerages holding stock certificates as “book entry” is the normal method. They keep the certificates. If you want to sell, all you have to do is tell them to sell and not have to worry about delivering the certificates back to the brokerage.
J.
They are doing this so that they don’t have to send you new stock certificates. Book entry means the new shares are recorded by the transfer agent. Nothing bad has happened to you. You own the same percentage of the firm that you did before. If you want them you can go ahead, but its not really important and it just means you have to deal with safeguarding the certificates yourself.
I concur – most brokerages hold stock this way in order to allow for faster turnaround; plus you don’t have to keep track of your certificates, and you can’t lose them.
Just wanted to add that the reason the proxy statement is showing the pre-split number of shares may be because the record date for the stockholder vote may be prior to the effective date of the split. As others have said, nothing to worry about.