Shaily Jain
(Chartered Accountants)
(1054 Points)
Replied 22 June 2007
GDR
Global Depository Receipt (GDR) - certificate issued by international bank, which can be subject of worldwide circulation on capital markets. GDR's are emitted by banks, which purchase shares of foreign companies and deposit it on the accounts. Global Depository Receipt facilitates trade of shares, especially those from emerging markets. Prices of GDR's are often close to values of realted shares. Very similar to GDR's are ADR's. GDR's are also spelled as Global Depositary Receipt.
ADR
An American Depositary Receipt (ADR) is how the stock of most foreign companies trades in United States stock markets. Each ADR is issued by a U.S. depositary bank and represents one or more shares of a foreign stock or a fraction of a share. If investors own an ADR they have the right to obtain the foreign stock it represents, but U.S. investors usually find it more convenient to own the ADR. The price of an ADR is often close to the price of the foreign stock in its home market, adjusted for the ratio of ADRs to foreign company shares. Depository banks have numerous responsibilities to the holders of ADRs and to the non-U.S. company the ADRs represent. The largest depositary bank is The Bank of New York. Individual shares of a foreign corporation represented by an ADR are called American Depositary Shares (ADS).