New campaign asks ‘Kei whea koe?’

Ātihau-Whanganui Incorporation has embarked on an intensive campaign to reduce the $2.3 million in unclaimed dividends they are holding for shareholders whose contact details are unknown.

There are more than 9000 shareholders in the incorporation’s lands but the organisation does not have contact details for 5000 of them, 500 of which have more than $1,000 in unclaimed dividends owing to them.

The Ātihau-Whanganui Inc shareholder engagement team will be using social media, print media and hui over the next year to find those shareholders in the new campaign entitled ‘Kei whea koe?’ (‘Where are you?’).

Whetu Moataane, ĀtihauWhanganui Incorporation Tikanga and Branding Manager, says the hui planned with whānau across the rohe will be key to finding many of the shareholders.

“Our people at home will have institutional knowledge of the families we need to find; it really is just a matter of us taking the time to meet and talk with them which we will be doing over the coming months.”

“One of the main problems is that some of these shareholders either don’t know they are shareholders

in Ātihau-Whanganui Inc, or some of them have passed on and their whānau don’t know about their Māori land interests or that there is money owing to them.” grandchildren will need to go through the succession process with the Māori Land Court before claiming their dividend from the incorporation.

The team has estimated that the 500 shareholders are owed a total of $1.5 million in unclaimed dividends.

“The majority of the shareholders, whose contact details are unknown, are owed less than $1,000 each but 500 of them are owed substantial amounts between $1,000 and $30,000 each,” says Charmaine Teki from the Ātihau-Whanganui Inc engagement team.

Above: Jonelle Hiroti-Kinane and Charmaine Teki are working hard to track down missing whānau.

“Our aim is to reduce our unclaimed dividends balance.”

Charmaine says the process of claiming an unclaimed dividend would be straight forward for those shareholders who are alive.

“It would be a simple matter of them filling out a shareholder update form, providing their identification and their bank account details.”

For the shareholders who have passed on, their children or “It is up to the whānau of the deceased shareholder to decide whether or not they succeed to the shares individually or as a whānau trust, but we are here to help steer them in the right direction with that process,” says Charmaine.

Earlier this year, the team canvassed shareholders who lived in Australia.

“There was $50,000 owing to our people who we knew lived in Australia so by simply contacting them with the details we had on file and requesting updated bank account details we were able to distribute $10,000.”

All shareholders on social media are encouraged to start following the Ātihau-Whanganui Inc page on Facebook and to share any pānui posted on there as part of the ‘Kei whea koe?’ campaign.

www.facebook.com/ atihauwhanganui

Email: office@atihau.com Mail: PO Box 4035, Whanganui 4541 Visit us: 16 Bell Street (upstairs), Whanganui Call: 06 348 7213 between 8.30am and 4pm weekdays