Rs 50k-cr shares, Rs 5.5k-cr dividends lying unclaimed

Mumbai: As per an estimate, shares worth Rs50,000 crore and dividends worth Rs5,550 crore are lying unclaimed. And the numbers are increasing every year. With the increasing awareness amongst the public, focus on digitisation of such investments, the government’s focus on addressing such investor issues and creating awareness about unclaimed investments, more and more investors & their families are getting to know about such unclaimed investments.

Earlier investments in shares used to happen in the form of physical share certificates. This is prior to the era of Demat account. Many such investors and families are still holding investments in the form of physical share certificates and have not dematerialised them. In many cases the documents are lost, investors have changed addresses, moved abroad or even passed away without transferring such information to family members.

Talking to Bizz Buzz, Sanchit Garg, CEO & Co-Founder GLC Wealth says, “In such cases investments in shares and dividends are lying unclaimed for several years. As per the regulations in India, these shares & dividends are marked as “unclaimed” and even transferred to the Government authority after a few years.”

GLC Wealth Advisor has emerged as the pioneer in the field of recovery of unclaimed investments in India. The company is currently the largest and most trusted player in the organized advisory space in India. GLC Wealth identifies and traces investors who have Unclaimed / Forgotten investments in shares and other financial securities.

The core mission of the most qualified and professional team of GLC Wealth is to help investors, including senior citizens, NRIs and business families, to recover their old / lost/forgotten investments which have been lying unclaimed for many decades.

The company works under the leadership of Sanchit Garg and Ankit Garg, Advocate and founder Garg Law Chambers. GLC Wealth has been striving hard to assist investors to recover their unclaimed investments from the IEPF by providing in-depth legal expertise.

According to some estimates the amount of Unclaimed Dividend in India is upwards of Rs 4000 Crs and an amount of over 10000 Cr which remained unclaimed has been transferred to Investor Education and Protection Fund.

Mohit Gang, CEO, MoneyFront says, “India is a typical patriarchal society where till today family finances are not openly discussed. And many times when the head of the family suddenly passes away, family is not able to trace all financial assets which leads to this scenario.”

Second big reason is change of bank accounts and then failing to update the KYC and demat records. Also, holding physical shares, improper legacy planning, dispute amongst family members are few other reasons of unclaimed dividends.