Telecoms company, Vodafone is offering its hundreds of thousands of Irish shareholders the opportunity to sell their shares in the company free of charge, or at reduced cost, while at the same time hoping to clear up its unwieldy share register and cut the cost of administering it.

The multinational group has a hugely disproportionate number of small shareholders in Ireland – 334,000 of them – compared to 67,000 with similar holdings in the UK which is a much larger market.

The majority of these shareholders date back to the flotation of Eircom – now Eir – in 1999 and Eircom’s subsequent sale of its mobile operator, Eircell, to Vodafone two years later

Under the Vodafone offer, those with fewer than 50 shares can sell them at zero commission cost while those holding between 51 and 1,000 will incur reduced sales commission prices. In both cases charges will be capped at €42.

The Vodafone share price is currently trading at 222p or just over €2.90.

Revenue has already determined here that the share price would need to hit a level of close to €4.60 before profits and a tax liability would accrue for many shareholders.