Hi all,
on my IB account I still have some Russian ADR stocks that were traded in London. Do you know if any broker or bank in Switzerland would allow the conversion of these shares (and the trading activity on the MOEX exchange)?
Thanks
Did anyone have any luck with that? Any Swissquote customer here who had Russian ADRs by any chance?
I have a survey from a group and only a few have managed to convert. I think if you are with IBKR, you are SOL as there are so many different sanctions and intermediary companies needed to make this happen, practically it is impossible.
The other route is the Russian-only ‘forced conversion’ route and you ‘force convert’ these into MOEX listed underlying shares and have Gazprombank hold them for you in a restricted account.
I had some Lukoil ADRs at IB that I transferred to Freedom24 and subsequently converted into the underlying share on MOEX back in 2022 - I believe there was some deadline for this conversion back in 2022, at least for Lukoil, but do not remember the details.
I still cannot sell the shares 
, but I at least receive dividends now and then minus various fees.
A few people went down the Freedom24 route. I wasn’t convinced having them on MOEX was worth the hassle of the transfer, but given the circumstances, it is probably better to be safe than sorry.
Is that discussion group still on? Unfortunately, I’m in the same boat and would be interested in sharing experiences.
What would you reckon is the best way to proceed forward? (Assuming there’s still one now in 2024).
I’ve read that certain law firms have made it a business case to help investors in that respect.
Out of curiosity, are you aware of investors who were able to recover not only the underlying shares but also the past dividends?
Interesting. Can you detail a bit more about the process? Do you know if they would still facilitate the conversion today? Did you open an account with them just for that?
Yes, you can open an account with GPB and have the dividends deposited there, but they are still ‘frozen’.
There’s a 3 year limit, so at some point it might make sense to do a forced conversion to avoid losing dividends.