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I am participating in my company's ESPP. My share lots have two restrictions:

  • A sales restriction of 18 months, which is what it sounds like: I can't sell the shares until I've held them for 18 months.
  • A transfer restriction of 24 months.

So, what is a transfer restriction? I thought it meant that I can't transfer my shares to another broker. This seems pointless, since once I can sell my shares I can effectively transfer them to another broker, by transferring the cash. The only downside is the minor transaction fees. But maybe it means something else.

Here's the screenshot of what I see when I try to transfer a lot. I have no idea what "share issuance" means.

This is via Computershare, for what it's worth.

Hopefully the gist of my question makes sense.

enter image description here

Stephen
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1 Answers1

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I believe your definition of a transfer is the right one.

Your employer has an ESPP plan administered by Computershare. Amongst other things, one thing they might do (depending on your plan) is track your profit or loss on the shares for the employer's tax purposes. (The employer gets a tax deduction for the wage income recognition they can do triggered by you selling your ESPP shares.) The accounting of that is different on transfers. Thus they have different holding periods.

davmp
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