You can be assured that the process will be to sell an "Entity" that holds the FDN deposit for several reasons , the main being the tax consequences you talk about. ( That is also why stock will be considered rather than cash) as cash will become taxable whereas stock will have an adjusted basis and not be subject to taxes until the stock is sold by the receiving party...this allows each individual ARU investor to determine his own tax consequences based upon when he decides to sell the exchanged stock. ( These are USA rules and I think they are similar to Canadian...but I am not sure)

There will be professional advisors on both sdes determining the tax advantages for both parties whenever there is a purchase of assets .