Tower spin-off Australian Wealth Management is seeking to offload its small shareholders, claiming the cost of maintaining them on its share registry is too onerous.
The group said in a letter to shareholders on Friday that because of its demerger from Tower, 83,000 of its 110,000 shareholders had “unmarketable parcels” of shares.
The group said the decision to sell off all shareholdings worth less than $500 had been forced on it by servicing costs.
“Ongoing registry and related costs of maintaining small shareholdings are the same as maintaining large shareholdings,” the letter said.
AWM was formed in February this year following the demerger from Tower Ltd.
AWM plans to sell the shareholdings – valued at the closing price of $1.03 per share on April 12 – without clients incurring brokerage or other costs on or as soon as possible after June 13.
Shareholders who do not wish to participate must advise the group of their decision at any time up to May 27.
