ASIC has warned retail investors to watch out for unsolicited share offers following its stop order against Hassle Free Share Sales, which prevented the company from making offers to buy shares in AMP and Axa Asia Pacific Holdings.
The corporate watchdog initiated stop orders against Hassle Free Share Sales following concerns that offer documents to investors had misleading or deceptive statements and were worded unclearly.
Hassle Free Share Sales made around 90,000 unsolicited offers to AMP and Axa shareholders between July and September this year to buy their shares below current market prices.
An example included an offer by Hassle Free Share Sales of $1589.68 for 641 Axa shares, which was $1850 less than their market value of $3448.58 at that time.
ASIC is concerned that investors may receive unsolicited offers for their shares at a price which is much less than their current market value.
The regulator said many such investors may own shares from past demutualisations and may have little experience in understanding what their shares are worth or how to deal with them.
"Investors need to be on the lookout for these unsolicited share offers. ASIC wants to stamp out this dubious practice and will act to stop these operators when we think the law has been broken," ASIC deputy chairman Belinda Gibson said.
Investors who received the offer documents and accepted the Hassle Free Share Sales offers may have rights under the Corporations Act to refuse to transfer their AMP or Axa shares or seek return of those shares.
Yesterday, AMP also warned its shareholders to reject the latest unsolicited and below market offer for their shares.
AMP chief financial officer Paul Leaming said shareholders should be cautious of any unsolicited offers for their shares.
"With share prices changing all the time it is easy for investors to get confused about the value of their shares," he said.
"We strongly urge our shareholders to reject this current offer and to always carefully investigate any offer for their AMP shares."
