Disclaimer: None of this is financial advice. You are an individual investor who is free to invest how you see fit. This is just another one of my cat's educational bedtime stories.
This is Part 8 of the Computershare DD Series.
A lot has happened since we started this series back in August, 2021! Like 123,860 new DRS GME investors, and 8.9 MM Direct Registered shares as of January 29, 2022! 🥳🥳🥳
Now that the initial Direct Registration wave is well underway and awareness about DRS is spreading, it's time to talk about one of the most important aspects in the GME saga...
VOTING!
Most of you probably remember last year I/we did a lot of work to promote voting your shares before the Annual Shareholder Meeting. The idea was that by (over)voting, the abusive Naked Short Selling would be exposed and corporate GME would have the evidence needed to prove the systemic attack from short sellers.
But what we learned in the meantime was that when you hold shares beneficially, i.e. through a broker, you don't hold the voting right for your shares. Your broker does. So whether or not those proxy votes get reported accurately and honestly is up to whether or not you believe brokers/the DTC are capable of accurate and honest reporting...
I don't know about you but I don't trust brokers to expose their own crooked game by reporting that information accurately.
And I know you're saying "but Pink, I got proxy materials and voted last year and I got the confirmation email my vote was received and we even got some euro brokers to admit they didn't own the underlying security, they just held a cash equivalent value and therefore had no right to vote in the first place and you even gave me a really rad voting flair...."
Well, I'm going to say we had the right idea, but didn't know at the time the importance of registered ownership in the voting equation. Seriously. Voting your registered shares is the way.
Beneficial vs. Registered Ownership (and why it makes a difference)
When your shares are direct registered, you have a direct relationship with the company you're invested in. With beneficial ownership, your name is on the books of the broker, but the broker's name is actually on the books of the company. Which means the company doesn't even know who you are, and the voting rights belong to only your broker. With registered ownership means the company knows my name, contact information, and exactly how many shares I own (and vote) via the company register, which is maintained by the Transfer Agent (Computershare).
Let's look at a flow chart to help understand the difference.
As you can see, with beneficial ownership, I fall somewhere (pretty much anonymously) under the umbrella of the broker/CEDE & Co relationship and I'm far detached from the company I'm invested in. With registered ownership, I'm literally on the books of Gamestop.
Voting Registered Shares Removes the Middleman
So when you vote registered shares, there is no opportunity for misreporting to the company how many votes occurred, because you are reporting that vote directly to the company through its Transfer Agent, Computershare. And they know who you are, and exactly how many shares you're voting.
And in the theoretical event of overvoting, registered shares are undeniable proof that the DTC/brokers can't manipulate.
Computershare also has ways to receive your annual shareholder information and vote electronically. Here's an excellent FAQ they put out just in time to start preparing for the Annual Shareholder Meeting. Registering to receive this stuff electronically will save Gamestop major money on printing and postage costs with proxy materials and further help streamline the entire process.
Computershare also put out a helpful YouTube video about the topic! Shout out to Paul Conn and the team at Computershare for providing these resources!
You will of course be able to receive proxy materials and vote by postal mail if for some reason you can't/don't enroll in e-comm with Computershare.
It's time to start preparing to Vote!
You will once again see me campaigning for voting your shares before this year's Annual Shareholder Meeting on June 2nd. It's your right as a registered shareholder to vote directly on the books with the company in the next corporate vote, and I want to help spread that message far and wide.
It's important to remember that there is a share record date every year that you must own your shares by, in order to vote those shares. Last year it was 4/20 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)... and this year it's probably safe to assume it will be around that time again. So whatever shares you have DRS'ed by the share record date- which we don't know yet- are the shares you will be voting in the upcoming annual shareholder vote. (You will also likely be provided the option to vote by proxy through your broker held shares just like last year, and I will be voting through those as well.) If you've been on the fence about DRSing, this is a valid reason to have a sort of deadline to doing so, if this topic matters to you!
*****
The Computershare FAQ I also linked earlier has an easy guide to how to make sure you're set up electronically with them to be able to do everything online, including voting your registered shares in the upcoming AGM. I will likely be making more posts on this topic as the time grows closer and it becomes more relevant.
For more information about beneficial vs. registered ownership and an overall introduction to the Direct Registration System, check out this intro to DRS video I did on YouTube!
BUY. HOLD. SHOP. DRS. GET READY TO VOTE YOUR SHARES.
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