Sanlam Demutualisation Trust

The Purpose of the Trust

On 22 October 1998, Sanlam's Demutualisation Trust (Trust) accepted responsibility for the safekeeping of 513 669 828 unclaimed free shares allocated to 562 002 eligible policyholders during Sanlam's demutualisation process.  Its responsibilities included the following:

• Control over the release of shares to the rightful owners;
• Use of financially justifiable means to locate beneficiaries;
• Receiving and safekeeping of dividends as part of the trust fund;
• Use of the trust fund to cover administrative costs as was specified in the terms and conditions of the trust deed;
• Ensuring that all valid claims by eligible policyholders received in time were processed;
• Managing the cut-off for valid claims received before 24:00 on 22 October 2008 as determined by the High Court.

How the Trust worked

The Trust was controlled by a board of five independent trustees appointed by the Master of the High Court. They were Judge Leonora van den Heever (chair), Mr. Johan Bester, Mr. Pume Canca, Prof. Willie Esterhuyse and Prof. Abram Nkabinde. Dr. Jacob Maritz served as administrative trustee.

The Trust employees were divided into five teams:

• Office of the Administrative Trustee, Dr Jacob Maritz, responsible for matters concerning the board of trustees, finances, systems and procedural security regarding the release of shares, all matters concerning the shares register, policy and strategic issues
• An investigative team responsible for the search of various sources for contact information such as telephone numbers and addresses
• Correspondence
• Telephone locators and a call centre
• Public awareness campaigns and kiosks in shopping centres around the country.

During the 10 year existence of the Trust, a total amount of R96 096 278.00 was spend on all the various search and release projects.

Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

What happened with the unclaimed shares?

In accordance with the demutualisation scheme, approved by the High Court, the unclaimed shares reverted back to Sanlam Limited.

What was meant by an invalid claim?

For a claim to have been valid it had to reach the Trust before the cut-off at 24:00 on 22 October 2008 and had to meet all other requirements, namely, the validations form had to be properly completed and signed and all the required supporting documents had to accompany it.

What happened if a person just missed the cut-off?

Special audited measures were in place to ensure that all claims received before 24:00 on 22 October 2008 were recorded and processed. Any claim received after the cut-off time was regarded late and therefore invalid by the Trust.

Final position with regard to unclaimed shares.

After all claims received in time, were processed, only 19 223 529 of the free shares originally allocated to 48 604 eligible policyholders were still unclaimed. The number represents 1,01% of all the original allocated free shares and 2,34% of the original number of eligible policyholders respectively. Apart from those who claimed their shares in time, another 12 000 beneficiaries were contacted successfully and forms to claim their shares were sent to them well ahead of the cut-off but they did not return the forms in time or at all.