Tracing a series of takeovers

Graye

My greatgrandfather died in 1944. At that point he owned several thousand shares in a company called The British Needle Company which he had helped to form. He died intestate. I am still waiting for a copy of the probate but I believe the shares were divided equally between his five children. I remember that my grandmother's allocation was first taken over by Aero Needles (Abel Morrall), then Coats Paton and that she sold them quite a few years later, probably the late 70s. I now have a missing share certificate in my great grandfather's name for 250 shares, issued in 1925. I have asked Capita (who now deal with Coats plc) for help in establishing what happened with these shares and also the relevant dividends as I believe these were never included in the split of his assets. They are tiptoeing around the issue and say they cannot trace The British Needle Co as being one taken over in the way I have suggested.

I seem to remember there was a large two volume set of dark blue books which gave the share history of companies (was it called Exel?) and I can't undersand why they can't find the information very easily. I think I can actually find it via a National Archives search but would prefer to just point them to the right information now. I don't think any real money is at stake here, it's more of a family history matter.

Any ideas would be very welcome.

barak

Graye wrote: »

.....They [Capita] are tiptoeing around the issue and say they cannot trace The British Needle Co as being one taken over in the way I have suggested.....

This may be of interest. :undecided A search of The Times Archive reveals an article on 8th September 1972 under a headline "Abel Morrall up 48 pc" which mentioned that the results did not include British Needle which had been acquired in March.

Graye

That's exactly what I needed to know. Thanks for taking the time to check that for me. I shall write back to them and ask them to review their records.