Corporate Actions - A Concise Guide

Corporate actions are normally considered as incidental to the business of investing and marketing investments, but in fact they are highly relevant. The aim of this concise guide is to define what corporate actions are, list and describe the main corporate actions and show how individual corporate actions are applied to investors' holdings of securities. This will give an overview of the way in which the corporate actions processing function works both in the UK and other important global markets. The guide is designed to be an introduction to corporate actions for investment industry practitioners in general. Those starting out in corporate actions processing will find it a helpful outline, but it is also designed to be useful for all who encounter corporate actions tangentially in disciplines such as fund management or financial advice provision. Different industry participants have differing interests in corporate actions, and for the sake of consistency the guide is (mainly) written from the point of view of the beneficial owners of securities. The first section of the book deals exclusively with equity corporate actions, providing the definitions of a corporate action and the legal framework(s) underpinning corporate actions, followed by a look at the most significant actions one by one, and then a detailed examination of the staging of some of these. The corporate actions of debt securities are given separate treatment later in the book. Next the focus moves from the corporate actions themselves to the industry that has grown up to process them, covering respectively the corporate actions industry, its efficiency and its progress (recent and future). After that the author takes a look at the impact of successive corporate actions on one particular share and shareholdings in it. This is then followed by a look at the scope investors have for influencing such events through shareholder voting. The final chapter looks at how corporate actions are treated in the context of stock indices, stock charts and a number of more complex investments. Those who simply require a handy and straightforward introduction to specific corporate actions will find the quick guide to the content and the glossary of corporate actions terms especially useful. This guide provides a snapshot of the current state of affairs in the corporate actions industry, alongside some of the forces for change that are at work. The aim has been to provide sufficient detail to give the reader a working model that is helpful in navigating the corporate actions universe.