Registration and FAQ

Your request must be in writing and signed and must be sent to Shareholders Service (scanned request), fax or land mail (see form letter in appendix 2).  A copy of your identity card must be included without fail (or scanned if sending your request via e-mail).

Please contact Shareholders Service by telephone or in writing.

Shareholders Service 
43 rue des Champs Elysées    
B-1050 Brussels (Belgium)   
Tel.+32 2 639 66 30    
e-mail: shareholders@syensqo.com

First contact your notary, lawyer, banker or other advisor to establish the conditions for the donation to be made.

Send a letter to Shareholders Service stipulating the terms of the off-exchange transfer of the shares (see model letter in appendix 2) and a copy (certified copy) of the notarial deed of donation, whether it is a donation of full or bare ownership of shares.

Confirmation of the registration of the transfer of shares will be sent to the parties concerned.

Please inform Shareholders Service of the date of death in writing with a copy of the death certificate.  

Please include the contact details of the notary in charge of the succession.

Attach, if already established, a copy of the deed of inheritance as well as the precise instructions for sharing the shares, countersigned by all the beneficiaries.

If one of the heirs resides outside a Member State of the European Economic Area (i.e. outside the European Union, Liechtenstein, Iceland or Norway) attach a release certificate requested by the notary to the tax administration (Legal Security Office) as soon as the inheritance tax has been paid. The notary can also carry out the formalities described above. 

Article 10 of the articles of association of Syensqo stipulates that the company recognizes only one owner per share.  Joint owners must therefore designate one of themselves as the share owner vis-à-vis Syensqo to exercise their rights (and in particular voting rights). The same applies in the event of usufruct or pledging. This does not affect the ownership of shares covered by the designation in any way. They remain registered under the name of the joint inheritance / bare ownership-usufruct beneficiary. Letter templates (appendix 4 – 5) must be sent to Shareholders Service duly completed and signed by all parties.  Failure to do so means that shares cannot be accepted at shareholder meetings.

Yes.  Shareholders Service can send you a position balance statement from the register.

On the strength of this document the bank can draw up a pledge agreement between itself and you. You must subsequently send a copy of the agreement to Shareholders Service.

The company confirms to both parties that the pledge has been listed in the register until  Shareholders Service has been informed of its cancellation by the bank.

Article 10 of the articles of association of Syensqo requires that a single person be designated (as is the case for joint ownership or usufruct/bare ownership) as the share owner vis-à-vis the company. The letter template in appendix 3.3 must be completed and signed by all parties and be sent to Shareholders Service.

In the event of purchases on stock markets, the operation is carried out via a financial intermediary (credit institution or brokerage). Shares will be credited as registered or dematerialized shares, as decided by the shareholder.

The stock market sale of dematerialized shares is carried out via a financial intermediary (credit institution or brokerage).

The sale of registered shares is carried out by a financial intermediary (credit institution or brokerage), having first asked Shareholders Service to transfer the shares to a securities account by means of a signed document.

Please contact your financial intermediary to have dematerialised shares transferred to the registered Syensqo securities account with Euroclear Belgium. A template of the letter to address to your financial intermediary is attached in appendix 1.

Please send a signed letter to Shareholders Service indicating the stock file in which shares must be transferred as well as the Euroclear Belgium account of your financial intermediary (credit institution or brokerage).  

Attach also a copy of your ID card and a RIB.

In principle, payment of dividends is taxed in Belgium.  This withholding tax, known as “précompte mobilier” is set at 30% since January 1, 2017 and is payable at source.

However, Belgium has signed international tax conventions with a number of nations (1) (2) that caps the withholding tax at 15%. Non-resident Syensqo shareholders meeting the conditions laid down by these treaties can therefore claim tax relief.

The procedure to claim tax relief is subject to an agreement signed by the authorities in the two countries concerned. Below are the main points.

Reimbursement application

The general rule is that tax convention eligibility is obtained by reimbursement, which must be requested from the Bureau Central de Taxation “Etranger”, boulevard du Jardin Botanique, 50, boîte 3429, B-1000 Brussels.  To do so, form 276 Div. AUT must be used and not any other.  The form can be downloaded from our website in appendix 6.

Both parts of the form must be correctly completed and signed. Once done, they must be submitted for approval by the international taxation department to which the requisitioning party is subject. The appropriate civil servant will return the first part of the document and keep the second. The first part of the document must be sent to the department (address above) along with:

The dividend payment form for registered or dematerialized shares

The circular and attached dividend statement, which the company issues several days before release of payment of the dividend for any shares owned as registered shares.

Reduction at source application

The company is exceptionally authorized to apply tax relief directly, but only when the request concerns exclusively dividends from registered shares (and must therefore defer all cases of dividends from both registered and dematerialized shares).  In this instance, the first part of form 276 Div. AUT must be completed, signed and approved and must be sent to the company within ten days of payment of income. No reason can be accepted for exceeding this deadline. The company is required to return to the sender all documents not correctly completed or received late.

^{(1) Capped at 15%: Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA.}

^{(2) Capped at 10% for residents of Bulgaria, China, Hungary, Kuwait, Mauritius, Russia and the United Kingdom.}