Voluntary Corporate Actions
Interactive Brokers provides information to account holders on upcoming voluntary corporate actions within Account Management. The Voluntary CA Election tool may be accessed through the Message Center or by navigating to the Corporate Action Manager available through the Customer Service Tools. For detailed information on how to submit instructions through the Voluntary CA Election tool, please click here.
In the event an open voluntary corporate action is not available through IB's Voluntary CA Election tool, instructions to participate in the offer should be submitted to IB by creating an Inquiry/Problem ticket via Account Management. To do this, go to Account Management, and from the Customer Service menu, select Message Center; click on the tab to "Create" a New Ticket; select Category Account Services; select Topic Corporate Actions/Dividends.
In the text of the request you must state the issue or description of the security (name and symbol) and the quantity that you wish to tender or exercise (you cannot simply say "all," you must state an exact amount).
After IB receives the completed instructions, you will receive confirmation of receipt of your instructions within one business day. If you do not receive confirmation, you must contact the IB Help Desk by clicking here. Submission of more than one ticket for the same voluntary offer may result in the account being over-subscribed to an offer.
Information Regarding Election Deadlines
Please note that in some regions, IB must submit instructions to our clearing agents earlier than the deadlines typically announced within the offer documents. This is typically the case in regions where instructions may not be submitted electronically. In order to ensure processing of voluntary corporate actions, the deadlines by region are as follows
Australian corporate actions: instructions should be submitted 7 days prior to the expiration of the offer.
UK corporate actions: instructions should be submitted 5 days prior to the expiration of the offer.
Canadian corporate actions: IB does not currently support elections submitted via Guaranteed Delivery. All shares being elected on must be settled by the IB stated election deadline.
All other regions: instructions should be submitted by 12:00 ET the day prior to the expiration of the offer.
Instructions submitted after the above stated deadlines will be handled on a best-efforts basis.
Action-Specific Information
Australian Subscription Rights: For the purposes of calculating a client's rights entitlement to participate in rights issues, at the time of submission of the election to the street, IB will round down fractional entitlements to, if less than 1, zero, and if greater than 1, the nearest whole number. For example, in a 1:10 rights issue, if the client holds less than 10 shares of the issuer, then when IB determines a client's rights entitlement it will round down to zero; If a client holds between 10 to 19 shares, IB will round down to 1. To participate in a rights issue, elections must be submitted via the Account Management election tool. IB will no longer accept an Inquiry Ticket which requests to round up fractional entitlements.
Canadian Redemptions: For Canadian securities which offer a monthly redemption / retraction privilege, holders should submit a ticket to IB with instructions to submit their shares. Tickets should include the security symbol and exact quantity you wish to submit for redemption / retraction. Monthly redemption / retraction information will not be provided in the IB Corporate Action Election Tool.
US / Canada Warrants: Customers requesting to exercise US or Canadian warrants should submit a ticket to IB stating the name/symbol of the warrant, the quantity of shares and the intended action (i.e. exercise). IB will pass through all associated exercise costs to the customer upon completion of the request.
US Exercising appraisal rights: In the event a client wishes to exercise
appraisal rights on a proposed merger consideration, the request should be
submitted via the Account Management Message Center. Due to the manual
nature involved in processing such requests, the following must be met to
ensure processing (a) the request must be submitted to IB no later than 4
business days prior to the deadline for appraisal rights with the agent and
(b) shares must be settled in the account at least 4 business days prior to
the deadline for appraisal rights with the agent. Any request which does not
meet the above criteria will be handled on a best-efforts basis and IB
cannot guarantee that the request will be processed. It is possible that
only a portion of the shares requested may be exercised in such instances.
