Sale deadline approaches for Vodafone shareholders

Shareholders in Vodafone have just days to take advantage of an offer to sell their shares in the company commission free.

Vodafone has 334,342 shareholders in Ireland holding fewer that 1,000 each - compared to just 66,500 in the UK. Of the Irish shareholders 103,300 hold fewer than 50 shares.

Most would have been original shareholders in Telecom Éireann from the time it was floated in 1999, and have held their shares in Vodafone since the British telecoms giant acquired Eircell, Eircom’s then mobile business in 2001.

Irish shareholders have been holding on since in the hope of recouping their original investment but that is still a distant prospect.

After several cash payouts, share consolidations and even a dalliance with shares in another telco, Verizon, as a result of Vodafone selling out of its US joint venture to its partner, the Irish Revenue has determined that investors would now need to get a price of €4.58 a share to make a profit on their Vodafone shares.

As of yesterday, Vodafone shares were trading in London at just over €2.96 (228.71p sterling) and show little sign of returning to the highs seen in 2000 just ahead of the Eircell deal.

Vodafone has offered small investors the chance to sell their shares in the company at zero commission if they hold fewer than 50 shares, or at reduced commission (capped at €42) for anyone with between 51 and 1,000 shares.

The incentive for the company is the savings available as a result of it not having to post out circulars and other investor communications during the year. Losing up to 400,000 small shareholders would also tidy up its share register.

The company, through its registrar Computershare, has offered people the options either of selling their entire holding, buying more shares or gifting their shares to charity. Those selling shares cannot sell only part of the holding.

However, up to the start of this month, the offer had had only very limited take up. In the first 10 weeks of the offer period, just over a quarter of the company’s small Irish shareholders had accepted. That figure is likely to have grown since but a large number of Irish shareholders have yet to contact the company.

The deadline now looms on Monday, after which shareholders will be locked into their investment or forced to sell at commission rates that will eat into most of their remaining investment - at least for the more than 100,000 shareholders with fewer than 50 share.

The average holding of this group is just 27 shares, worth €80 before commission.

Investors who hold the shares electronically through a Vodafone Share Account must give instructions to sell those shares before 2pm Monday to avail of the low-cost or commission free terms.

The alternative – posting in the share dealing forms that were sent out by Computershare – carries a 5pm deadline but will be impractical at this stage, despite the Dublin posting address.