The company, based in Malvern, Pa., near Philadelphia, also has a site in another part of the Philadelphia area that functions as a backup for account processing and shareholder record-keeping.
Corporate records show that the relatives' stake of that investment most likely peaked at $2.2 billion in late 2007, the last year in which Taihong's shareholder records were publicly available.
The bid is subject to a national security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, and that scrutiny will include a review of shareholder records.
I had been told many times that this is typically done by using "nominee investors," friends or people not easily identifiable in the shareholder records as having ties to politicians.
Around the same time, Mr. Xu invested in a Dalian diamond mine and in Jiaxing Carbon Fiber, another company partly controlled by Mr. Wen's relatives, according to shareholder records.
Each shareholder of record on June 27 will receive one share of Certegy for every two shares of Equifax held.
AutoNation will give each shareholder of record on June 16 one share of the ANC Rental Corporation for every eight shares of AutoNation owned.
Traditionally, an investor would first have to be a shareholder of record to participate in such programs.
Any Sprint Nextel shareholder of record at the close of business on Sept. 7, 2007, has a quarterly dividend coming.
For example, shares of Cisco Systems held by thousands of individuals through a retail broker such as Charles Schwab count as just one "shareholder of record"–Schwab.
Merrill Lynch could have thousands of clients all holding shares in a company, yet they would collectively be counted as one shareholder of record.
