I asked TD Ameritrade about this, and they said it could take up to two weeks! Grrrrr....

I spoke with the folks at Penntrade, and it sounds like depositing my ECU certificate in an account with them is the simplest solution for me. They charge a fee of $100 to deposit a foreign certificate, but at least the shares will be tradeable, and they will take care of tendering the shares if the merger goes through.

I suspect that most brokers that would accept this certificate would charge a fee like this, in any case.

Penntrade sounds like they might be just the ticket....I'm afraid that I'm not up for a trip to Toronto, and I'd feel better knowing that my certificate is in good hands by the time the meeting happens. Penntrade's relatively high commissions have scared me off in the past - I've been spoiled by sub-$10 commissions for years - but IMO, it's time to pay more in exchange for top-notch customer service. I also like that they are in Idaho, mining country, and they like working with small-cap stocks, unlike *some* brokerages we know....

I'll give them a call tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion, argoz, and to caseyc, jnycat, and lawnbowler for your ideas, as well!

Goldgrrl

Well, about 3 years ago I listened to Jim Sinclair and converted some of my stock holdings to certificate form. Now, I have a certificate for ECU shares that I will need to tender for the merger; the paperwork I received from Computershare recommends tendering shares in advance of the merger vote - the certificate would be returned to me in the event that the merger doesn't happen. The certficate is supposed to be sent to Toronto; I am in Oregon - i.e., shipment to Toronto would be international.

I thought I'd try an alternate approach: I tried to deposit the certificate with TD Ameritrade, with whom I have an account. They refused to deposit my certificate! Something about covering their own a**es due to risk; supposedly under some circumstances they could be fined by the US govt! - this is true even though I already hold a significant quantity of ECU shares with them. So, depositing the certificate with a brokerage appears to be tricky at best.

Shipping the certificate is also tricky. FedEx won't even ship the certificate for the $10K value I'd like to insure it for. UPS wants to charge a minimum of about $160-170 from Oregon to Toronto, with the $10K insurance. The US Postal Service will only insure to a maximum of $5000, using Express Mail, at a cost of about $42.

The Postal Service appears to be my best option, though of course I'd lose money if the envelope were lost.

I had *no idea* that this process would be this painful! Does anyone have other suggestions on how to tender these shares? Very frustrating....

Thanks alot in advance!

Goldgrrl

jnycat,

No taxes are owed on losses.

I just looked at the US tax information in the circular. An important distinction in the tax rules is whether the stock was considered a PFIC (Passive Foreign Investment Company) during the shareholder's ownership period, or not. I quote from p. 99:

"ECU believes, and the following discussion assumes, that it may be and may have been a PFIC in one or more years since its formation."

I have run into the PFIC issue with Central Fund of Canada in the past. IRS Form 8621 is no fun at all to deal with.

Does anyone know if, in fact, ECU qualified as a PFIC at any time? If so, during what years?

Thanks much in advance for any info you can provide.