Talking about unmarketable parcels of shares, I have to say I am...

Talking about unmarketable parcels of shares, I have to say I am interested in how many shareholders there may be in this position. I'm guessing it will not have changed too much since the last Annual General Report dated 27/09/2012. Page 78 states that there were 229,388,397 shares held by 4275 shareholders. Page 80 states that 3016 shareholders held an unmarketable parcel of shares with the total amount of shares being 8,357,725. Presuming that is not a typo, after the 1 for 15 consolidation this means 3016 shareholders held 557,181 shares.

That's an average of just 184 shares for each of those 3016 shareholders or at the latest closing price a market value of around $248 for each parcel. A shareholder with $500 worth of shares at the moment has about 375 shares.

The main reason I am interested is because the Half Year report released in February 2013 stated on page 3 that "the Board considers it to be premature at this time to initiate a capital return given the numerous potential growth opportunities...". I'd really love to know how much of a capital return was being considered. It would need to have been something substantial to have made it worthwhile administering and distributing to well over 4000 shareholders.

I have actually been waiting for an announcement from the company about a share sale or top up facility being offered to the holders of unmarketable parcels. Most companies are really keen to clean up their registers so I'm a bit confused why this hasn't happened yet. It's a perfect opportunity to reduce the time spent on administration and the associated cost of maintaining the smaller shareholders. I reckon there would be a lot of people who just hold their small parcel of shares because the cost of brokerage would be close to or more than the value of the holding. A lot of people would jump at the chance of selling their small parcel if it was all done for them and with no cost to them.

That's all IMHO lol