Moscow. 30 October. INTERFAX - Eddie Astanin, Chairman of the Executive Board of National Settlement Depository (NSD, a part of the Moscow Exchange Group told Interfax that his company completes the process of opening or re-conversion of accounts. This process shall be completed by 6 November in compliance with the Law “On Central Securities Depository.”
The law provides the 1 year transition period since the moment of receiving the central securities depository status by NSD. During this period, the company shall take measures required for opening the CSD nominee accounts or for making changes in the CSD nominee accounts:
- in all registers of securities owners obligated to disclose information;
- in all registers of UIT units owners or mortgage certificates owners if the trust management rules provide an opportunity of these securities’ circulation in the organized market.
The central securities depository status was assigned to NSD on 6 November 2012.
OPERATING RESULTS
According to Mr. Astanin, by 23 October NSD opened or re-conversed 1,314 CSD nominee accounts in registers: 1,198 accounts for shares, 115 accounts for UIT units and 1 account for bonds.
According to Mr. Astanin, for opening or re-conversion the accounts in securities owners’ registers, NSD held an audit of issuers of securities accepted for servicing by NSD and Depository Clearing Company (DCC, a part of the Moscow Exchange Group), and checked if it was required to open the CSD nominee accounts for their securities. The company found approximately 1,200 issuers in whose registers the nominee accounts were changed to the CSD nominee accounts in 1Q 2013.
As stated by Mr. Astanin, the asset management companies were checked too; NSD found around 100 UITs for which the same changes were required. In September 2013, the nominee accounts in the UITs’ registers were replaced by the CSD nominee accounts.
FURTHER TASKS
According to the Chairman of the Executive Board of NSD, despite the work carried out by the company, there are some registers in which NSD has not re-conversed the accounts for the reasons that were beyond NSD’s control. Eddie Astanin said: “We did not re-converse the accounts in seven registers because the registrar’s license had been suspended. One register was not available for re-qualification as the regulator had prohibited operations in it. And finally, one issuer was on deposit with the registrar, so we could not conduct the required operations.”
A source in the financial market informed Interfax that NSD could not re-converse the accounts in the registers of Regional Registration Company LLC as its license was suspended in early October.
Moreover, according to Mr. Astanin, NSD has to re-qualify the accounts in Russian Depository Receipts register; this is scheduled for 5 November.
To date Russian depository receipts have been issued by Sberbank for United Company RUSAL Plc.
On 29 October, NSD announced that it planned to send documents to Status registrar for re- conversion of the nominee account to CSD nominee account in the register of owners of Russian depository receipts of United Company RUSAL Plc.
Financial and Economic Information Service