Sino Agro Food Inc (fka SIAF)

[ks1977]

it all comes down to that if you have SIAF shares officially on your account October 31 you qualify

And where has SIAF/TRW said that? As RD pointed out; now you're using exchange rules and not the announcement from SIAF/TRW, so why are you so sure that exchange rules does not apply in respect to the ex date?

Let me quote from this link again (groupssa.com/understandingdividenddates.html);

Contrary to a common misperception, the record date does not always determine which investor (the buyer or the seller) gets the dividend. It is true that with normal dividends the record date determines the ex-dividend date but that is not true for dividends of 25% or more of a company's stock price. Therefore, while it is often true that the record date determines which investor gets the dividend (indirectly by virtue of determining the ex-dividend date), it is always true that the ex-dividend date determines which investor (the buyer or the seller) gets the dividend