Make sure you send clear instructions and accurate information when you trade your Sanlam shares through the dealing service run by Mercantile Registrars on behalf of Sanlam.
The service, which has handled much of the heavy trade in Sanlam shares since the life assurer demutualised in December, was plagued by complaints in the first couple of months. But any wrinkles have been ironed out, Sanlam chairman, Marinus Daling, who was quizzed by a discontented shareholder at Sanlam's first shareholders' meeting this week, says.
"Most of the time the dealing has gone smoothly," Jan Ackermann, head of shareholder services at Sanlam, says. "But because the volumes of trade are so huge, even a small proportion of complaints is a big number."
Sanlam shareholders can sell their shares through Mercantile's Sanlam Share Dealing Service by telephone or instructions in writing. At R30 a transaction, the service offered by Mercantile is a "cheap, no-frills service", Ackermann says, and only works if you send the correct information about your share account number, identity document and bank account.
Ackermann has spent weeks working with Mercantile chasing up money frozen in the banking system because the shareholder did not give accurate payment instructions or because the bank was not computerised. Postal delays, letters or cheques lost in the post and shareholders' lack of understanding about how the trading works, have also contributed to shareholder frustration, he says.
When you give an instruction to sell, your shares will be "bulked" by Mercantile into lots and sold with other shares, and you will be paid the average price for the lots sold by Mercantile on that day.
"This is not necessarily the same as the daily average market price quoted in the newspapers," Ackermann says.
"Some people don't understand this. Sometimes they don't realise, either, that share transactions are settled only once a week, on a Tuesday, and that Mercantile pays out on Wednesdays."