Foreign companies listed on the US markets may terminate their American Depository Receipts(DRs) for a variety of reasons including lack of liquidity, interest, costs, etc. This is different from a company moving their listing from an organized exchange such as the NYSE to OTC market. In such cases the ADR will continue to trade but just the ticker and the trading market will be different. For example, recently French firm Veolia Environnement moved from NYSE to the OTC market. The ticker changed from VE to VEOEY.
When a foreign company terminates its ADR program, then investors usually have two options: either they can cash in their holdings thru the depository in charge of the DR program or request the underlying shares so that the investor can continue to hold equity in the company. If the second option is available then the investor will end up owning the ordinary shares that trade on the domestic market of the foreign company. To illustrate this scenario, in October this year Israel Chemicals Limited that used to trade on the OTC market under the ticker ISCHY decided to terminate its DR program. ADR holders were given the two options mentioned above. The company trades on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange under the ticker ICL.
As the year comes to an end some investors may find that their foreign stock is not trading any more on the US markets. There is no need to get worried. It may be possible that the foreign firm may have terminated its DR program. You can check the table below to see if the company terminated its ADR. If not, it is possible that the ticker may have changed.
The following is a list of foreign companies that terminated their DR programs in 2014:
Source: BNY Mellon
Disclosure: Long VEOEY
