AMP launches its search for lost shareholders
AMP Limited has launched a campaign to find 43,000 “lost” shareholders and connect them with their holdings and $13 million worth of unclaimed dividends.
AMP has exhausted all means to contact them or pay their dividends.
In many cases, investors – most of whom are likely to now be retirees – provided AMP with a postal address, bank account or email address that is no longer valid.
The average lost shareholder is a 63-year-old male. There are 352 lost Johns, 322 lost Peters and 100 lost shareholders called Margaret. Thirty-seven thousand lost shareholders are Australian while 4600 are New Zealanders. Most either live – or have lived – in New South Wales (12,000), Victoria (10,000) and Queensland (6700).
Twenty-two thousand lost shareholders have unclaimed dividends waiting for them to collect, with an average dividend windfall of $600. One shareholder hasn’t claimed $25,000 in dividends.
The lost holdings represent 22 million shares in total and the average holding is 523 shares, although one lost shareholder has 68,000 shares under their name.
More than 3200 shareholdings are jointly held. Some 4400 of the lost shareholders have passed away, which means that 3.4 million shares are waiting to be transferred to beneficiaries along with associated dividends.
AMP head of shareholder services Marnie Reid said: “AMP has the third-largest shareholder base in Australia. Many of our approximately 730,000 shareholders are mum-and-dad policy holders who were given shares when AMP and National Mutual (which later became AXA) demutualised in the ’90s.
“Some people have forgotten they own shares. Sometimes we lose track of shareholders when they divorce or move home and don’t update their contact details with us.
“Physical addresses have changed over the years.”
AMP has launched the website findmyampshares.com .au, which allows people to use their date of birth to see if they, a family member or client (in the case of financial advisers, solicitors and tax agents) own a stake in AMP. The website also helps people to then claim their shares and any dividends they are owed.
“We have date of birth details for approximately 37,000 of our lost shareholders, which should make reconnection simple,’’ Ms Reid said.
“People can enter a date of birth into findmyampshares .com.au to find out if they’re on the list and then start there.”