The company will send out a letter to small shareholders asking them if they want to retain their shares and if they do not respond, they will be sent payment for their shares.

There is a cut-off point of February 27 for shareholders to get in touch with AWB to retain their small parcels of shares.

With over 600,000 shares held in unmanageable packages, going on this week's share price, the total value of the shares is close to $1.4 million.

With share registry companies often charging close to $30 per shareholder to manage a company's registry it is relatively common corporate practice to downsize share registers.