Overview of Corporate Actions
A corporate action is any event that brings material change to a company and affects its stakeholders (bondholders as well as stockholders)
Purpose
The purpose of a corporate action is generally driven by the board of directors of the security issuer although shareholders are permitted to vote on some events. Some of the main purposes of corporation actions are:
1 income distributions (dividend and interest payments on issued securities).
2 corporate restructuring.
3 raising capital.
4 share capital restructuring.
5 debt restructuring.
6 debt redemption.
7 dissemination of information.
There are also corporate actions whose purposes are not driven by the issuer, but are instead motivated by the desire of one company to take over another for various business or strategic reasons.
Impact
It is possible to analyze corporate action events in terms of their impact on various parties
1 Security issuer's perspective: Corporate actions can have significant effects on the capital structure and financial position of the issuing company.
2 Security holders perspective: From a security holder's point of view, corporate actions can have either a positive or negative effect depending on the type of event and the opinion or perspective of the security holder on the actual event.
3 Market's perspective: Corporate actions can also affect other market participants through their impact on the market price of the issuers underlying security.
Nature of Benefit Generation
Corporate actions may be:
1 mandatory or compulsory.
2 mandatory with options.
3 involuntary or non-mandatory.
Market Participants
The diagram below provides an illustration of the various intermediaries in the corporate action chain. Note that this is a highly stylized depiction and the processing chain may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and from event to event.
Custodians' Record Keeping & Reporting
As part of their role in the corporate action processing chain, custodians must perform appropriate record keeping and reporting. The records that a custodian maintains are dependent on the nature of the securities (or other products) being serviced.
They generally maintain two main sets of reports:
1 The first is by client and, within each client's account, the securities belonging to that client. This is the 'client centric report.
2 The second is by security and, within the security list, the clients involved with that security. This is the 'security centric report.
Custodians also maintain a cash record that replicates the security centric report. This record reflects the total cash position for which a custodian is responsible and the individual client account balances that comprise that total.
There are a number of ways by which custodians communicate instructions and other information with clients:
1 SWIFT
2 secure client portals
3 proprietary communications services operated by CSDs
4 e-mail
5 fax
6 telephone
7 telex
The last four named are all regarded as high risk communication channels, so services such as SWIFT are preferable.
Static data is an important element in the processing of corporate actions by custodians and other intermediaries. Static data refers to common reference data that can be shared across positions and systems, and represents a store of information about securities and clients which seldom changes.