ontologies

Category 4: Shareholdings

Any shareholding either (a) amounting to a controlling interest, or (b) not amounting to a controlling interest, but exceeding £50,000 in value.

  1. Members should include all such shareholdings held, either personally, or with or on behalf of their spouse, partner or dependent children, in any public or private company. Members should not specify the value of the shares or the percentage of shares in a company that are owned, other than by indicating whether the shareholding falls under category 4(a) or 4(b).

  2. For each registrable shareholding, the entry should state the name of the company and briefly indicate the nature of the company’s business, where this is not self-evident.

  3. The value of a shareholding is determined by the market price of the share at the time it is first registered, and thereafter by the market price on 5 April. This means that after Register entries relating to shareholdings are first registered they need to be updated only once a year, within one month of 5 April. The Registrar should however be informed of the purchase or disposal of registrable shareholdings within one month of the date of the purchase or sale. If the market price cannot be ascertained (e.g. because the company is unquoted and there is no market in the shares), the member should decide whether to register it on the basis of its estimated value. Interests in shareholdings include share options.

  4. Holdings in a collective investment vehicle (including unit trusts, investment trusts and investment companies with variable capital (ICVCs)) are not generally registrable. Members may, however, consider registration in this category in appropriate cases, such as sector-specific vehicles.

  5. Holdings in blind trusts are exempt from registration.

  6. Members who are beneficiaries of trusts (including discretionary beneficiaries) should register holdings of the trust which meet the requirements for registration set out above.

  7. Pensions are not in themselves registrable (see paragraph 68), but identifiable holdings in a self-invested personal fund are registrable in either this category or category 5 as appropriate if of registrable value.

  8. Shareholdings in companies the purpose of which is to own the freehold of a personal residence of a member or of a property registered in another category are not registrable. Holdings of UK and other governments’ stock, gilts, bonds, premium bonds, national savings and the like are not registrable. Corporate bondholdings are not registrable.