BlueScope Steel shareholders with holdings worth less than $500 will have their stock automatically sold unless they opt out of the company's share-sale plan.
The scheme will allow about 80,000 small shareholders with so-called "unmarketable parcels" to sell their shares without paying brokerage costs that might otherwise make a sale uneconomical.
Based on a 40¢ share price, the automatic sale would apply to people with up to 1250 shares.
Late last month, BlueScope sent letters to eligible shareholders in Australia and New Zealand with details of the share-sale facility, including a closing date of November 9 for anyone who wanted to opt out.
People who wanted to keep their shares had to complete a retention form, buy more shares or merge their separate holdings into one parcel of 1250 shares or more.
BlueScope said the benefits of the sale included that "the expense to the company of maintaining over 80,000 shareholders with unmarketable parcels is reduced".
The company's share price ended last week at 42¢, still very low historically but a significant improvement on prices below 30¢ in early August.
Shareholders whose holdings are sold under the sale plan will receive the average price of all shares sold.
BlueScope said it would sell the shares after November 15 on behalf of people who did not opt out.
The money would be paid to them in early December.
People who wanted to sell did not have to do anything, it said.
BlueScope reported its second consecutive billion-dollar annual loss in August, but said its struggling Australian businesses had turned the corner.
The loss included about $288 million in redundancy and restructuring costs, made up partly of payouts from Port Kembla after its decision last year to quit the export market and cut about 800 jobs there. The company remains locked in a dispute with steelworkers' unions at Port Kembla over a new enterprise agreement.