What are ADRs and what are the fees investors pay

Recently one of our Inner Circle members asked, “You mentioned recently that TSI recommends a handful of ADRs (American Depositary Receipts) providing exposure to European and Japanese stocks. One question: What are the ADR fees charged to investors by U.S.-listed ADRs?”

An American Depositary Receipt, or ADR, is a proxy for a foreign stock that trades in the U.S. and represents a specified number of shares in the foreign corporation. ADRs are bought and sold on U.S. stock markets, just like regular stocks, and are issued or sponsored in the U.S. by a bank or brokerage firm. If you own an ADR, you have the right to obtain the foreign stock it represents. However, investors usually find it more convenient to continue to hold the ADR.

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One ADR certificate may represent one or more shares of the foreign stock. Or, if the stock is expensive, the ADR may represent a fraction of a share; that way the ADR will start out trading at a moderate price or be in the range of similar securities on the exchange where it trades.

The price of an ADR is usually close to the price of the foreign stock in its home market. There are no redemption dates on ADRs.

When an investor owns an ADR, a custodian—Citi, Bank of New York Mellon, and J.P. Morgan Chase are among the largest—is in charge of holding it. The custodian also maintains the records and collects the dividends paid out by the foreign issuer. It then converts those payments into U.S. dollars and deposits them into stockholders’ accounts. For all these services, the custodian charges an ADR fee.

The custodian may deduct that ADR fee from the dividends, or it may charge the ADR holder separately. If the ADR doesn’t pay a dividend, the custodian will charge the ADF fee directly to the brokerage, which in turn will charge it to a client’s account.

We feel you can find all the foreign investment variety and exposure you need by confining your purchases to U.S. and Canadian stocks, plus low-fee ETFs (exchange traded funds). However, if you want to invest in a particular foreign stock, it’s generally more convenient and economic to hold ADRs of foreign stocks, rather than the foreign stocks themselves.

Bonus: What are CDRs?

While I’m on the topic, some investors confuse ADRs, with CDRs. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)’s Canadian Depository Receipts (CDRs) give investors the opportunity to buy shares and/or fractions of shares in any of a number of U.S. or other foreign companies, in bundles that start out trading at a price of about $20 Cdn. each. CDRs come with a built-in hedging feature that reduces exchange-rate fluctuations. This feature costs you 0.60% of your investment yearly.

CDRs let you invest small sums in U.S. or other foreign stocks, some of which have exceptionally high per-share prices. (For instance, Nvidia currently trades for $610 a share.) Note, though, that with highly liquid stocks like Nvidia, or the other shares underlying CIBC’s CDRs, investors can easily buy, say, just one or two shares if they want.

CDRs represent shares of U.S. or other foreign companies but are traded on a Canadian stock exchange in Canadian dollars.

The main negative about CDRs is the fees.

CIBC charges no direct management fees for CDRs. However, the CDRs are hedged against movements of the U.S. dollar relative to the Canadian dollar. That means the Canadian-dollar value of the CDRs rises and falls solely with the movements of the underlying stock.

Of course, hedging has costs—and hedging against changes in the U.S. dollar only works in your favour when the value of the U.S. dollar drops in relation to the Canadian currency. If the U.S. dollar rises while your investment is hedged, that reduces any gain you’d otherwise enjoy, or expands any loss.

CIBC makes money hedging the CDRs—and that costs investors 0.60% of the value of their CDR holdings per year. It’s revenue for the bank, but of minimal value for investors in our view. In addition, if you wind up holding the CDR for a lengthy period, the foreign-exchange differential may fluctuate widely during your ownership, but end up not far from where it was when you bought the CDR.

At the same time, CIBC earns currency-conversion commissions when investors buy and sell the CDRs, or on dividends paid to holders. But rather than the 1.5%, say, that most retail investors pay, CDR investors will pay “institutional rates,” which may be lower.

We see no need for hedging against U.S. dollar exposure. In fact, we see U.S. dollar exposure as a long-term plus—a valuable form of diversification.

We don’t recommend CDRs. The built-in foreign exchange hedge of CDRs is only a plus if you feel strongly that the U.S. dollar is headed downward in relation to the Canadian dollar. But if that’s the case, why buy a U.S. stock?

Use our three-part Successful Investor approach to succeed in any investing scenario:

1. Hold mostly high-quality, dividend-paying stocks.
2. Spread your money out across most if not all of the five main economic sectors: Manufacturing & Industry, Resources & Commodities, Consumer, Finance and Utilities.
3. Downplay or stay out of stocks in the broker/media limelight.

Do you invest in ADRs? Do ADR fees make sense to you? Leave a comment below, and we’ll try to expand on it if you have more questions.