Glossary

Tailored Shareholder Report

What is a tailored shareholder report?

A tailored shareholder report is a new requirement for investment companies filing under the Securities Act of 1940. Mandated by the SEC in January 2023 and beginning July 2024, all mutual funds and ETFs filing under Form N-1A will be required to produce a new, 4-page tailored shareholder report designed to increase transparency of fund performance for shareholders. The tailored shareholder report must be tailored to each investor class, featuring variable information related to that investor share class. The report will also require iXBRL tagging. These reports must be mailed to investors, with additional information available online and in paper format upon request. For support and additional information, explore our investment company compliance solutions.

Tender Offer

What is a tender offer?

A tender offer is an offer from an investor, or investor group, to purchase a specified minimum of the company’s shares at a price point that is typically higher than the stock price, making the offer attractive to current shareholders. Since the offer is made to current shareholders, the purchase of a controlling interest in the company stock may be done without the company’s approval. With no required company involvement, tender offers can be hostile takeovers. Shareholders of the acquired entity may realize a significant return on the transaction and the acquiring company benefits can include increased revenue as well as decreased competition. For support and additional information, explore our Capital Markets Transactions solutions. 

Transfer Agent

What is a transfer agent?

A transfer agent is a financial institution named by a corporation to maintain records of investors, or registered shareholders, who own certificate-form shares. If the transfer agent is handling the registered shareholder’s proxy material distribution, they will coordinate the distribution process for the issuer, print registered proxy cards, and mail proxy materials to registered shareholders and employee plans​. Transfer agents maintain the registered shareholder information and are generally responsible for facilitating the proxy distribution for the registered shareholder and employee plan participants​. They also can not facilitate the beneficial shareholder proxy distribution​. For support and additional information, explore our Annual Meeting and Proxy Solutions.

XBRL

What is XBRL?

XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language. It is an open-source, XML-based standard for communicating and exchanging financial and business information.

The main purpose of XBRL is to facilitate the sharing of financial and business information in a standardized and efficient manner. It allows for the tagging of individual pieces of data within financial statements, making it easier to analyze and compare data across different companies and industries.

XBRL has gained widespread adoption around the world, particularly in the realm of financial reporting. It is used by regulatory bodies, such as the SEC in the United States, to require public companies to file financial statements in XBRL format, and by companies to communicate their financial results to investors and other stakeholders.