Investor FAQs

If your shares are held in “street name” and you wish to become a shareholder of record, you can instruct your broker-dealer to move your security position through the Direct Registration System (“DRS”) to American Stock Transfer & Trust Company, LLC (“AST”), the Company’s transfer agent, for direct registration on the Company’s share register held with AST. The DRS provides for electronic direct registration of securities in an investor's name on the books of a company with its transfer agent, and allows shares to be transferred between a transfer agent and broker electronically. If you later wish to sell your shares through your broker-dealer, you may instruct your broker-dealer to request that your shares be moved back to the broker-dealer through the DRS.

In the United States, the vast majority of shares held by a broker or an agent of that broker are registered under the name of Cede & Co., as nominee for The Depository Trust Company (which acts as depositary and clearing house for many U.S. brokerage firms and custodian banks). If your shares are held in a stock brokerage account or otherwise by a broker, bank, trust or other nominee, then Cede & Co. is considered the record or registered holder and you are considered the beneficial owner of those shares, and your shares are said to be held in “street name.” Street name holders generally cannot vote their shares directly and must instead instruct their broker, bank, trust or other nominee how to vote their shares in connection with shareholder meetings.

If your shares are registered directly in your name in the Company’s records, you are considered the shareholder of record with respect to those shares. Shareholders of record can vote their shares directly.