registrar
Registrar: the company that keeps the official record of who owns shares in a company, and handles dividends, bonus shares, and share certificates.
In plain English
Your uncle in Lagos has been calling the bank for three days because his dividend from a company he invested in years ago never entered his account, and the bank keeps telling him it is not their matter to sort.
That confusion usually ends with one phone call, but not to the company itself. It ends with a call to the registrar, because the registrar is the one keeping the actual list of every single shareholder, how many shares each person owns, and where their money and documents should go.
Think of a company like Nestle Nigeria or Dangote Cement as a huge classroom with thousands of shareholders scattered across Lagos, Kano, London, and Houston. The company itself is busy making cement or noodles. It does not have time to chase addresses, update bank details, or print certificates. So it hires a registrar, a specialist firm whose whole job is to manage that shareholder register, process dividend payments, handle bonus shares, and sort out lost certificates or unclaimed dividends.
In the United Kingdom, a shareholder in a company like Tesco might deal with a registrar such as Equiniti or Computershare, the same kind of firm that Nigerian companies use, names like Africa Prudential or First Registrars. If you moved from Enugu to Manchester and forgot to update your address, the registrar is who you write to, not the company's head office.
This matters most for people abroad sending money home or holding onto family shares from a late parent. If nobody updates the registrar with correct details, dividends pile up unclaimed for years, and that money sits in a suspense account gathering dust instead of paying school fees.
Chidi inherited 2,000 shares in a Nigerian bank from his father. He never contacted the registrar to change the address on file, so three years of dividends, about ₦180,000 in total, sat unclaimed until he finally wrote to them with his father's death certificate and his own details.
Questions people ask
How do I find out who my registrar is?
Check your original share certificate, your dividend warrant, or the investor relations page on the company's website, since every listed company states its registrar there.
What happens if I never update my address with the registrar?
Your dividends and any bonus shares keep going to the old address or sit unclaimed in the company's records, and after a long enough time, unclaimed dividends can even be reabsorbed by the company under certain rules.
Is the registrar the same as my stockbroker?
No, your broker helps you buy and sell shares on the exchange, while the registrar keeps the permanent record of ownership and pays you dividends directly or through your bank.
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