WHAT TO DO WITH RUSSIAN ADRS?

In­vestors fear for their money in Rus­sian shares.

ABOUT

Cur­rently, hold­ers of Rus­sian De­pos­it­ary Re­ceipts (so-​called de­pos­it­ary re­ceipts) are re­ques­ted to ex­change them for the un­der­ly­ing ori­ginal shares. How­ever, a func­tion­ing ex­change pro­cess has not yet been established.
The pur­pose of de­pos­it­ary re­ceipts is to make shares that are not trad­able abroad nev­er­the­less trad­able there. The back­ground to this per­miss­ible de­tour is the dif­fer­ent re­quire­ments of na­tional le­gis­lat­ors for list­ing shares on dif­fer­ent trad­ing venues.

Rus­sian DRs are also de­pos­it­ory re­ceipts that cer­tify the right to own­er­ship of a share. The de­pos­it­ory re­ceipts are is­sued by so-​called DR pro­gram banks (also is­suers), mostly lead­ing in­ter­na­tional in­vest­ment banks such as Bank of New York Mel­lon (BNYM), Citi Bank or JP Morgan.
In April 2022, the Rus­sian le­gis­lature ordered the ter­min­a­tion of all DR pro­grams. As of April 27, 2022, DR hold­ers can­not ex­er­cise vot­ing rights or re­ceive di­vidends on the un­der­ly­ing shares. How­ever, un­paid di­vidends can be claimed by a DR holder after re­turn­ing the DRs and re­ceiv­ing the un­der­ly­ing shares.

TRADING OPTIONS FOR INVESTORS

Clearstream, the in­ter­na­tional cent­ral se­cur­it­ies de­pos­it­ory, an­nounced on 13/07/2022 that it will re­sume the ex­change of de­pos­it­ary re­ceipts (ADRs / GDRs) as of 18/07/2022. How­ever, the time frame is tight: the ex­change is to be pos­sible up to and in­clud­ing 31.07.2022. The back­ground is that the Rus­sian Cent­ral Se­cur­it­ies De­pos­it­ory (NSD – Rus­sian Se­cur­it­ies De­pos­it­ory) has an­nounced that it will not charge any fees dur­ing this period.

After that, it still re­mains to try the second way:

1. open­ing a se­cur­it­ies de­posit ac­count for the con­ver­ted or­din­ary shares.
   a) with a for­eign de­pos­it­ary bank act­ing as a for­eign nom­inee bank
   b) with a Rus­sian de­pos­it­ary bank
2. trans­fer of DRs to BNY Mellon’s de­posit ac­count with the De­pos­it­ary Trust Com­pany (DTC)
3. or­der trans­mis­sion to BNY Mel­lon for con­ver­sion of DRs and trans­fer of the con­ver­ted or­din­ary shares to the se­cur­it­ies account
4. post­ing of the con­ver­ted or­din­ary shares to the se­cur­it­ies account.

Ba­sic­ally, we mean: Do not be put off by ab­surdly short dead­lines that your cus­todian bank may set for you. From today’s per­spect­ive, the con­ver­sion of your de­pos­it­ary re­ceipts is pos­sible at least un­til Oc­to­ber 12, 2022.

At present, how­ever, any fore­cast is dif­fi­cult. All fur­ther in­form­a­tion as well as our man­date doc­u­ments can be found here.