help advice please investments and dissolved companies

happyhero

Hi, I am trying to help my stepfather with his investments, he is 86 and struggling to remember some parts of what he invested in but he has asked me to go through his paperwork and to simplify it all so that he can get rid of anything not performing well etc., his main idea is to simplify, simplify he keeps saying


I keep coming across company publications he has been sent that contain a share certificate or sometimes more. It seems he was quite active investing in the 1990’s up until about 2010, investing in any up and coming scheme with amounts ranging from £2000 to £5000 per investment. It’s not all great for him though as I have found that many of the companies have been dissolved so I assume that is the end of them unless you can tell me a way to pursue a dissolved company?


I look online to see the status of each company and have tried writing to the registrars shown on the share certificate which has worked in some cases. Can anybody tell me is this the best way to check my stepfathers holding and the status of the company?


Sometimes the registrar has confirmed my stepfathers holding and informed us of the status but some were not so helpful and I got the impression they were not interested in my questions as if they thought I should pursue this information another way, am I pursuing this incorrectly, I mean I cannot exactly write to the dissolved company so who can I contact?


I am using http://companycheck.co.uk to check the companies, would you advise a better way or place to check companies status?


Should I treat a dissolved company as investment lost and just file the paperwork away for records sake?



Any advice or help appreciated.

happyhero

anybody please?

grey_gym_sock

assuming these companies are or were listed on the london stock exchange (or AIM), you can search for old company announcements on http://www.investegate.co.uk/ ... with luck, the last few announcements might tell you what happened (e.g. taken over by another company, so shareholders should get some cash or other shares; or going into administration, so shareholders probably get nothing; or an orderly decision to wind up the company, so shareholders probably get some cash eventually).

though i should think the company's registrar also ought to be able to answer the question.

to complicate it a bit, in some cases a company changes its registrar, but the old share certificates remain valid, so the registrar mentioned on the share certificate is no longer the current 1.