The Investment Dealers Association of Canada is reminding firms that the Toronto Stock Exchange will begin adding extensions to stock symbols of issuers with different voting structures on September 30.

The so-called TSX Symbol Extension initiative was announced by the TSX back in April. It is intended to clarify to the market which company trading issues have “non-conventional” voting structures, by adding one of the following extensions included in the company ticker symbol; NV: non-voting, SV: subordinate voting, MV: multiple voting, LV: limited voting and RV: restricted voting.

Approximately 150 issues, including over 12 TSX Venture issues, will have their ticker symbols changed between September 30 and December 13 in groups of seven to 10 issues at a time, with at least one business day between each group of issues being renamed, the IDA says.

The IDA is askings its members to “assess their internal systems and databases such as order entry, quote displays, internal reports, client statements, any symbol driven functions, etc. to determine what modifications need to be implemented in order to prevent any disruptions. Member firms should ensure that open orders are maintained in the trading system as valid orders when the symbol changes come into effect.”