When investing in any Pfida Savings account, you get shares in Pfida Finance PLC, our special purpose company, whose sole purpose is to fund property purchases for customers. In turn, these shares give you a right to a share of the profits generated on those properties, through profit distributions (or “dividends”) .
Different types of shares are allocated into share classes, also known as share categories, which are defined by the amount you have invested and/or the type of account you hold.
What are the Pfida share classes?
Inactive share classes
When you invest with us, you will initially be issued with an inactive share class, such as W, X or Y shares. These are a holding category, awarded for a minimum period of time, representing the period until we are able to utilise your funds in properties and start generating a return on them. Therefore, inactive share classes do not earn dividends since the funds have not yet been utilised. It typically takes us around 2 to 3 months to deploy funds into properties and start generating a return for you.
It's important to note that inactive share classes carry all the same rights as active shares, and the amount and value of your investment is not impacted in any way by the share class that you hold. The different share classes are used solely to provide different levels of profit distributions for different account types.
Active share classes
Besides the inactive share classes, there are active share classes, such as A, M, N, Q and R. When you apply to invest with us, the subscription form you complete will tell you which share class you can expect to receive, and if there are different share classes based on the amount you invest and the account type you are applying for.
The different active share classes denote the account type you hold, and in some cases the level of investment. Aside from this, they all carry identical legal and economic rights. Once your shares are converted to an active share class, you will be eligible for profit distributions from the next dividend declaration date. We typically aim to start providing dividends within 2 to 3 months of your investment, and we will notify you in advance of any dividend distributions.
What can cause my share class to change?
Share classes can change for the following purposes:
Inactive shares moving across to active shares after a minimum holding period, or owing to funds being deployed into properties
The amount of your investment changing, resulting in your account tier changing
Business needs and requirements resulting in reclassifications of share classes, or changes to definitions of share classes
If your share class changes for any of the above reasons you will receive a notification from us letting you know.
What does ‘redeemable’ mean?
You might see the word ‘Redeemable’ next to the share class on your share certificate. If you see this, it means you can request those shares to be bought back by the company with no tax consequences. We normally recommend a minimum of 3 months’ notice if you’d like us to buy some of shares back, since this is how often we open investment windows to raise new funds and replace outgoing funds.
What does ‘ordinary’ mean?
When we first launched the Grow-Your-Savings initiative, we initially used to offer Ordinary shares, before moving to Redeemable shares. The only difference is if you request Ordinary shares to be bought back by the Company, there will be a small 0.5% tax liability. This is usually netted off from returns received to date, or else covered by us if the returns are insufficient.
How do I know which share classes I have?
You can see details of your shareholdings by checking your investor dashboard. This can be found by logging into your account.
Where can I find my share certificates?
These are all available within your document centre, found by logging into your account.