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August 7, 2006 12:30 AM

UKSharesFilter: Some of my relatives have had a small selection of the shares in an inherited portfolio disappear over time from their online tracker, so my question is what has happened to the following stocks: CHB.L; GAA.L; MFBUEUGI.L and MFBUTRU.L, and should they have received any notification, documents or even cheques, (and what can be done about finding out more)? (I should clarify that they still have the certificates and haven't sold, traded or otherwise physically disposed of them, it's the listing themselves that now come up as 'No Such Symbol' on the internet listing of the portfolio).
posted by timpollard to work & money (5 comments total)

If they still have the certs, have a look on the back (or the bottom of the face) to find the registrar. Give them a call. If there have been any relevant corporate actions, they'll know all about it.
posted by pompomtom at 1:53 AM on August 7, 2006

GAA is Granada TV which merged with Carlton to become ITV. You should get the shares switched for ITV ones as soon as possible, if you still can.

CHB is Chubb PLC. It was bought out 3 years ago and you should contact your broker to see what you can exchange your shares for, though you might have missed the deadline somewhat.

Don't know about the other two.
posted by cillit bang at 1:56 AM on August 7, 2006

The other two, MFBUEUGI and MFBUTRU, are likely to have belonged to Morley Fund Management.

Re the documentation question, if your relatives have moved house and didn't inform the Company Registrars for each company then any docs would have been sent to the wrong address.

Again, call the Registrars and check, best thing to do.
posted by Nugget at 4:25 AM on August 7, 2006

Many thanks for those answers, I do appreciate them. I'll check the certificates as soon as possible and see what happens. There's been no change of address though, so maybe the relevant mail never arrived, or was accidentally thrown out - expensive mistakes if that's the case though. Thanks again.
posted by timpollard at 6:52 AM on August 7, 2006

The holder of the shares is unlikely to have made an expensive mistake.

In the two buyout cases it's probable that the buyer was able to get enough holders to say yes to their offer (95%, IIRC) to enforce a compulsory purchase of the remaining shares in the market. This purchase will have happened a short while after the end of the takeover offer period and would have been at the same price as the takeover offer.
This means that purchasers can get 100% ownership of a company and aren't held to ransom by small investors refusing or forgetting to sell.

The shares have effectively been sold already and there is (at the registrars) a cheque with the holder's name on it. The cash might have been sitting in an account so you may even get (a pitifully small amount of) interest.
posted by patricio at 8:09 AM on August 7, 2006