Chives

joined 1 year ago
MODERATOR OF
activist_investing
drs_your_gme
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Supreme Court to hear major case that could upend tax code and doom "wealth tax" proposals in c/news@lemmy.world
[–] Chives@lemmy.whynotdrs.org 1 points 11 months ago

I agree with you completely regarding the massive improvements to liquidity and settlement with a centralized depository model. The Depository Trust was founded to that end and accomplished it well. However, I do not believe the 'control' of the shares is adequately dispersed to beneficial owners under the current system. See the concerns (long standing over decades) regarding shareholder democracy from my previous comment.

Supreme Court to hear major case that could upend tax code and doom "wealth tax" proposals in c/news@lemmy.world
[–] Chives@lemmy.whynotdrs.org 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

They 'own' them in the literal sense of ownership. Cede and Co is the name recorded on the issuer's stock ledger. In case you aren't familiar, the stock ledger is something issuers are required to maintain and use to track ownership. Very commonly this responsibility is outsourced to companies called Transfer Agents, which themselves need to be SEC approved.

https://www.sec.gov/about/reports-publications/investor-publications/holding-your-securities-get-the-facts

I would definitely encourage checking out the SEC's recently updated page on the options investors have when holding securities. It's very readable and will likely answer your questions.

TLDR - If you own shares in a broker, you are a "beneficial" owner. This means that while the economic and voting impact of ownership are supposed to be passed on to you, you are not the named owner. If you own shares directly on the register of the issuer there is no middleman to pass these things to you.

DRS is not about price impact on any security. There should never be any price impact on a security from investors choosing DRS over an alternative holding method. DRS, rather, allows for other assurances - most critical for me personally are 1. being able to submit shareholder proposals directly to the company without needing to go through other channels and 2. knowing that my votes will not only be cast, but counted. For more on 2, know that over voting is a massive issue in shareholder democracy, and companies holding elections or seeking shareholder input on proposals never get to see that. Proxy vote counting companies truncate or control voting results before reporting.

This is (imo) a fascinating and tragic problem. Here are a couple sources to get you started if you feel the same way.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=904004

https://web.archive.org/web/20060421085925/http://www.rgm.com/articles/FalseProxies.pdf

https://katten.com/files/21384_proxy-vote-processing-issues.pdf

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Shareholder Proposals Guide (www.whydrs.org)
 

WhyDRS Shareholder Proposals Guide

This is far too many characters above Lemmy's post limit - so please check out this resource on WhyDRS.org! Would be glad to talk in more detail in the comments. Let's work with our companies and make them better!

Advocacy and Corporate Governance: An Overview

Corporations constantly make decisions about operating procedures, corporate compensation, environmental policies, and much more. As a registered shareholder, you have a legally protected avenue and platform to communicate directly with boards of directors. Your proposal can open a conversation about an issue which matters to you.

Publicly traded U.S. securities are run by an elected board of directors, which have a fiduciary duty to make decisions and propose plans which benefit investors. The company has distributed ownership among investors, including beneficial shareholders maintaining an account with a Broker, and directly registered shareholders which hold shares in their name on the issuer’s ledger with the Transfer Agent.

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Sharing my ban message from Superstonk as well. Banned for brigading for a comment which wasn't on Superstonk - or even a GME subreddit. (lemmy.whynotdrs.org)
 

Yesterday, within about ten minutes of Bibic-Jr's Superstonk ban, I also received a ban notification from the Superstonk subreddit team.

The linked comment cited in the ban was on the beyond_uranus subreddit, a sub which does not discuss the same topics as Superstonk and a comment which did not mention or link Superstonk. The topic was regarding the sub owner advertising their own Lemmy community, which is also on this instance.

I'm also sharing my response to the mod team from about 24 hours ago - there has not been any reply from them yet. If I do get one I can share it here in a comment.

This offer stands for all GME and market reform communities who are looking to move away from Reddit as a platform and engage elsewhere. Reddit has become steadily more censorious with time, and the API changes and pending IPO make me skeptical that it is a proper long term solution for assembly.

Lemmy, by comparison, is open source / transparently moderated / communicates with other fediverse apps / free / is without influence of a for profit company / is without influence from advertisers.

I'm very glad this platform exists.

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3 Platform Items I would like to see from a GameStop Activist Investor Group (lemmy.whynotdrs.org)
 

  1. GME should work with Computershare so they (CS) can serve as a custodian for IRA’s. Ally and Mainstar have both walked back their support for DRSing IRAs. Computershare acting as a custodian as part of their contract with GameStop should allow for a cleaner solution.

  2. Revise the contract w/ Computershare w/ respect to their DirectStock plan, and provide more transparency to investors about both the ownership hierarchy of shares in the plan and the degree to which DirectStock shares are utilized for 'operational efficiency' - often 10 to 20%

  3. Issue a bulk of shares available for direct purchase by investors, similar to Home Depot's Depot Direct. This would allow for GameStop to sell shares directly to investors, and would allow purchases to be "Pure DRS" without further steps or actions.

Edit - Adding in 4, 5, and 6 from my comments on this post.

  1. request that GameStop insiders (or at least board members) must hold their shares in Pure DRS, especially for vested shares that cannot be sold for a while.

  2. GameStop should consider becoming their own transfer agent when their contract with Computershare is up for renewal.

  3. Introduce pro reward incentives, like additional percentage off, for verified stockholders on their ledger.

Grateful to be here. in c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
[–] Chives@lemmy.whynotdrs.org 5 points 1 year ago

lemmy.whynotdrs.org is where you can find the instance!

Grateful to be here. in c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
[–] Chives@lemmy.whynotdrs.org 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Never going back again. I see no reason to. This is better in every way.

The instance I am admin at is financial focused, specifically looking at Direct Registration, if that interests anyone!

Shoutout to All The Lemmy Servers (And Their Admins) in c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
[–] Chives@lemmy.whynotdrs.org 5 points 1 year ago

Seems about right.

I also treat the other server admins the same way.

Refugee Redditors as they make the move. in c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
[–] Chives@lemmy.whynotdrs.org 7 points 1 year ago

I am part of a team that runs an instance for financial discussion, specifically related to direct registration of securities.

For us, the benefit is additional control over the resiliency and transparency of the server and moderation style.

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Crossposts - Back up your due diligence and grow this platform at the same time. (lemmy.whynotdrs.org)
 

I saw another user crosspost some due diligence they had written last year and posted on Reddit to one of the related communities on this instance.

Here is that post: https://lemmy.whynotdrs.org/post/8800

It covers a subject which still is worth learning about today, and sets a great example. The user is able to make sure their content can stay available on a reliable host, and for the reader, there is a quick message at the top explaining that it was originally hosted elsewhere and when it had been posts there.

I love this idea - as I experienced with the DD I had written on the removed subreddit DRSyourGME, Reddit can wipe a slate clean if it chooses to.

Crossposting to this Lemmy instance is a great way to help have more redundancy so you know your work will stay available, and it also helps grow this fledgling platform.