I want to help Class C shareholders that have not yet started down the path of converting their shares to class A. It took me 5 months to get my shares converted due to working with a number of brokerage telephone support agents not knowing how to process this type of request and causing things to reset by not telling me upfront all documents needed to proceed. The way ALPP issued the shares is apparently quite uncommon and as such, caused a lot of red tape. I want to save you time so you don't have to spend 5 months doing what I did! :)
If anyone is interested, I have xx,xxx Class C shares, 25% of that amount showed up in my brokerage account this morning as Class A shares. Conversion was successful!! I may or may not have cried a little. The remaining class C shares are still in my account. I will be able to convert another 25% come Sept 2023.
As far as cost goes, I had to pay my broker a small "reorganization fee" of $38, and a fee of $155 to the transfer agent, V Stock Transfer. Finally, you will need to hire an attorney (not as bad as it sounds, I paid $325 for this service) to supply an opinion letter to the Transfer Agent / Brokerage. This took about 3 days. More on that is below.
I started the process on September 6th, 2022, the day that the shares were able to start being converted. I called my broker and advised that I wanted to DWAC the shares per the ALPP Aug 2022 8K (lol). That failed 3x times until I was told that restricted shares cannot be DWAC/DRS transferred. That makes sense, as it relates to SEC rule 144. 3 major things were needed that were not clearly presented by ALPP or my broker that would have saved a lot of time.
1. Rule 144 Opinion letter, specifically:
Section 4(a)(1) Opinion for a Non-Affiliate of a Non-Reporting* Company that has previously been a shell company (not Rule 144 eligible) who has held restricted common stock for more than two years.
**do NOT supply V Stock / your broker with a standard rule 144 opinion letter, this will extend the length of your processing time as it will be rejected due to ALPP's past and due to their delinquent status with filing financial reports**
A VERY important part of this is knowing that ALPP Class C shares do NOT have individual certificate numbers allocated to each shareholder. Your attorney will ask for this, but if you advise your attorney that V Stock Transfer sent global certificates instead of direct certificates (which basically is a ledger of shareholders for the class c shares), this will help speed up the process.
2. Letter of Instruction / Intent
Your broker may require this, mine did. Basically, state when you got the shares, and what you would like to do with them (transfer shares to transfer agent to have restricted legend removed). Provide all your contact information.
3. A filled credit card authorization form provided by V Stock Transfer. Your broker may require that they have this on record.
Once you have all 3 parts, contact your broker and start the process. You'll need to make a few phone calls. A few emails. But if you come preloaded with knowledge, I imagine it will not take 5 months as it did for me. Likely, the process should take 4-6 weeks depending on where your class C shares are located.
I hope this helps! Feel welcome to contact me with any questions.
AI
