Payback of the shares

[nichpe]

Hi there,

I used to invest some money via OnePlanetCrowd and later this amout got converted to shares.

Now I’m wondering: Will I ever hear again from this money or get it back?

When?
How?

Thx for your advise
best Nils

[anon9989719]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

If you are not aware this is ‘solely’ a user forum. For a proper response you had better contact support @ fairphone dot . . .

[yvmuell]

Maybe this answers your question

Shareholders discount

These shares are a long-term investment. They are not freely tradeable, so there is no market valuation for them at the moment. They remain with the crowdfunders (unless transferred with permission of the administrators) until the next investment round, where it is up to investors to determine how much Fairphone is worth. You should check the financial reports to know how your investment is doing, you get them every half year if you are a shareholder. They can’t be disclosed publicly, but from…

[nichpe]

Ok, and as a user I should only ask product-related questions here? Shurely I’m not the only one with the problem.

Well “thank you” anyway…

[nichpe]

Thx, but that doesn’t really help.

Best
Nils

[yvmuell]

The point is, its a user forum, and we can’t give you official statements, just some guesses or report about experience. So for an official statement from fairphone you have to #contactsupport

[Ingo]

Later tonight I can check what information can be found in the documents we got during the investment.

My understanding so far is that the only way to get back the money is to find someone willing to buy the shares from you. As those shares are not publicly listed, the only way to for you to go find that person and approach the right contact (I would assume this info to be somewhere in the OnePlanetCrowd documents). It’s not as easy as selling Apple shares at a stock exchange or any kind of trading broker.
Another option would be if someone wants to buy Fairphone as a company. IIRC all existing shareholders usually get an offer.

[Freigeist]

@nichpe

How much did you invest?
If you are fine with the original sum, I might be willing to buy them from you (if we get the OK from Fairphone).

[anon9989719]

Just to I tried that a nearly two years ago and the confirmation to the seller and me are to say least not happeneing

All the best

[Freigeist]

In the worst case I can plan a short holiday in Amsterdam to go there and force an answer out of them.
And afterwards I can do some sightseeing.

[Ingo]

The conversion offer FAQ has this

Your return on investment will therefore most likely not be paid through interim dividends,
but ultimately by way of a sale of the company to a third party (an ‘exit’).

Depositary receipts of shares are not admitted for trading on a regulated market or any other trad-
ing facility, making the depositary receipts more illiquid compared to listed shares. It is possible to
sell your depositary receipts, e.g. to a third party or a fellow crowdfunder. Such a transfer does not
require a notarial deed, but prior written approval from the board of the STAK is required. The most
sensible moment for investors to sell their depositary receipts is in the event of a sale of all issued
shares to a third party (an exit).

In the investment sheet there is a section about “Exit possibilities” which contains amongst other things

After eight years, the crowdfunding participants
will be able to sell its shareholdings to Fairphone
itself.

This kind of buyback is limited to the financial situation of Fairphone of course and it might not be possible to sell your shares to Fairphone if there’s not enough profit.

[Ingo]

There was this press release about a new investment in Fairphone: https://www.fairphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Impact-investor-consortium-invests-E49-million-in-Fairphone.pdf

The second paragraph in that document reads

The investment enables Fairphone to accelerate growth and scale impact while pursuing its
impact-driven mission towards fairer electronics. Furthermore it is used for the settlement of
existing loans and partial exit of current shareholders, including PYMWYMIC and over 1000
crowdfunders.

Maybe watch out for further replies to this tweet by Noud, the CFO of Fairphone. Maybe someone asks what this means for crowdfunders interested in selling their shares.
https://twitter.com/noudtillemans/status/1620357053507313664

Edit: existing shareholders are notified via email about the options they now have in the context of this investment

[joe]

The letter you linked also gives an estimate about the worth gain of the shares:
The shares raised from EUR 3.6031 in august 2018 to EUR 5.0840 in january 2023.

Thats a annual interest rate of about 11,3%, counted from August 2018 to January 2023. If you think, that by refusing the conversion offer you would have gained 5% of Interest, that’s not bad at all!

[DietmarP]

Did anyone understand why I could not sell all my shares but have to keep a tiny fraction?

[Ingo]

In your oneplanetcrowd profile you can download the contract with all conditions.

I find those hard to read and understand myself, but I’m pretty sure the “Tag-Along Right” section applies in this case (it mentions something along the lines of “then every holder of Depositary Receipts shall have the right to co-sell a proportional part of the Depositary Receipts against the same price and under the same conditions”).

I think in laymen terms it means that if one “real” investor sells a “large” amount of shares you can opt to do the same. And that investor in this case kept some share so you need to keep some, too.
That “real” investor is PYMWYMIC I assume from the press release.

[DietmarP]

I also find the documents hard to read even though actually I am working with legal documents written in English from time to time. These documents are actually the reason for me to sell. From the ideologue side I would have liked to support this enterprise longer, but the legal stuff is just beyond my reach. For a crowd funding, I would have appreciated a more real-world language (but I know, legal people rule the world - and make it hell of complicated).

Thanks for the hint to that part of the documents, I did not associate it to this case when I went through term.
This however means, I will never reach 0, like Achilles never reached the turtle.

[Ingo]

From what I understood there are two documented ways to sell all your shares

• Fairphone as a whole gets sold → you will be required to sell all your shares (“drag-along” section in the contract)
• after 8 years (so in 2026) Fairphone may spend part of their profits to buy back shares (that info was already in the investor sheet, but details of the process are not available yet AFAIK)

But yes, both are things not under your control.

In principle it should also be possible to sell shares directly to other shareholders but so far all feedback on that was that there doesn’t seem to be a process in place how to actually do that.

[simonbor]

I’ve the same thing. To complicated for me. It was a good invest in 2018, but it’s now more for investors (financial people) instead for normal Fairphoners.

In my opinion Fairphone is now missing the boat by making it more complicated for normal people, like me. It would be to their credit to explain this in plain simple language. I will still do support their mission and continue to enjoy my FP3+!