Finally! I caught up.
Got back in late Friday night, and took care of personal business Saturday morning. Then started reading all of the IHUB HLNT posts that I was not able to keep up with in Arkansas. Had to catch up on more that 1200 posts.
As I have gone along, I've noted posts that I could respond to for clarification or for which I could provide answers, so time to dig in.
Dandy4951 was asking about the difference between the Shareholders of Record and the Beneficial Shareholders (Posts #72198 and #72557). Shareholders of Record are those who actually own (has possession of) the stock certificates. Shareholders of Record can be individuals, brokerage houses, or other transfer agents. Beneficial Owners are the actual owners of the stock, and can be any one. What makes if confusing is that Beneficial Owners can also be Shareholders of Record and vice-versa. For example, John Q. Public can be a Shareholder of Record by having possession of a stock certificate, say for a 100 shares. He is also the Beneficial Owner as well. John Smith, on the other hand, buys his stock through Etrade, but doesn't take posession of the certificate and leaves all of that to Etrade. Etrade is the Shareholder of Record, John Smith is the Beneficial Owner. Etrade can also be both the Shareholder of Record and a Beneficial Owner where they maintain an inhouse account (not related to Market Making).
Not all brokerage houses maintain their own Certificates, either. Some will use a clearing service, which will be the Shareholder of Record for several brokerage houses, while the brokerage houses will have several clients who are the Beneficial Owners.
The company requests and receives a report of both the Beneficial Owners and the Shareholders of Record and uses that information to report those facts to the public. The importance of that information to shareholders when performing Due Diligence is in being able to determine what kind of market exists for the stock. A freely trading market makes entry and exit a minimal risk, but a closely held stock (very few stockholders and most shares being held by a few insiders) is not very liquid, and an unsuspecting investor could buy the stock but not be able to sell it later on. In terms of shareholders, then, HLNT is highly liquid in this sense, although those shareholders may not want to part with their shares, causing a lock up of the float.
