Thanks GCar for confirming that... The gentleman on the phone at...

Thanks GCar for confirming that... The gentleman on the phone at commsec mentioned something about the share registry holding the shares, if no option was chosen. As I never got the physical copy of scheme book I have barely skimmed the online one as yet, so my bad. I cannot stand reading so much on a screen.

Stephank and others concerned - I tried to keep it simple before but this is the more detailed version, some of which may be slightly off but will still be along the right lines: from memory on the phone to Commsec International Securities, it was explained they have, or had, some other broker or entity partner they worked with who would facilitate a transfer of shares from the US to the commsec international trade account, meaning we wouldn't have to find our own US based broker, however there has been some recent changes (can't remember what he said about it, maybe change of partner or some restructure) and due to this, transfers of the kind we are all potentially facing are currently not available.

I was advised it should resume again some time, potentially in about 2 weeks is what was said, but he also said that this time frame is not certain, so to call back in couple weeks to find out.

Given the uncertainty around this, I am thinking to receive CDI's, and then convert at a later time to US listed shares, provided Commsec International will be able to receive them again when they resume that service, as I don't really want the hassle of signing up with a US broker.

The thing I wish to find out though is when this part of transfer service does resume, will there be any other obstacle or difference to converting CDI's later down the track and then receiving the equivalent US shares, compared to just receiving US shares immediately from the merge, and if there are extra obstacles created by CDI, do I just take a gamble that if the merge happens I elect US shares and hope commsec has their thing all sorted by the time I need to receive them. But I don't know... Xmas/ Jan holidays and all!

I will see if I can find out more tomorrow.