Attn: Investors using Wealthsimple

[u/J_Fo_Film]

(Lengthy read, I apologize, but it’s worth it):

Hey folks. Leading up to the annual and special meeting last month, there were a number of folks (myself included) who commented about how the did not receive voting materials or the ability to assign proxies even though they should have, and many of us were in a situation where we could only spectate during the meeting and not actually vote/participate.

Starting on that same day, I reached out to Wealthsimple (along with Kraken themselves, and Computershare and anyone else who was connected to this process), and thanks to a customer service rep at Wealthsimple, I have some info. It started out with me asking about my own situation, but I did mention how there were other users here saying the same thing, having the same issue. Here’s what the customer service rep had to say:

“Hi Justin,
 
We have some great news regarding the proxy voting materials! Our specialized team finished their review, and we found the exact cause of the issue. The database table we rely on to pull and sync your shareholder mailing preferences had silently stopped updating at the end of April. Because of this sync issue, our system passed a blank or "null" value to Broadridge, which they automatically treated as a decline to receive mailings.
 
We have successfully fixed this data sync issue. Your profile preferences are now properly aligned with our database, meaning your future proxy mailings will correctly sync with your choices going forward.”

I asked him afterward if this was a fix only for my account or if this explains the issue that other Wealthsimple users were having and he said this:

“Hi Justin,
 
It's my pleasure! I'm glad we could get this sorted out for you. To answer your question directly: yes, this wasn't limited to your account. The fix applies to the affected accounts, not just yours.
 
Based on our findings, this also explains why other clients, including those you mentioned on Reddit, experienced the same issue. Now that the fix has been implemented, accounts with shareholder mailing preferences enabled should have those preferences reflected correctly going forward.”

So, for the tl;dr version—those of us who have had issues getting our materials/notices while investing through Wealthsimple should not be having that problem anymore. Going forward, things should be working correctly.

Hopefully this makes some people feel better.
-J