British Gas Share Price

empirebaypete

Could anyone tell me or point me the direction of where I could find out the price
of British Gas shares please. Ideally I'd like to know how much they were in Oct 1990.

When I try to search online I seem to come up with BG group, not British Gas.

cheers

Pete

CLAPTON

empirebaypete wrote: »

Could anyone tell me or point me the direction of where I could find out the price
of British Gas shares please. Ideally I'd like to know how much they were in Oct 1990.

When I try to search online I seem to come up with BG group, not British Gas.

cheers

Pete

what was once british gas has been transformed several times

it now only exists inhtree parts
-as Centrica which provides gas to the UK market place

BgGroup has been bought by Shell

and Transco has been incorporated into national grid

empirebaypete

Thanks Clapton.

Yes I have all the info when British Gas was split up etc.

The reason I need to know the share price in 1990 is for my tax.
As I received cash & shares when Royal Dutch took over BG this year
there will be a capital gain.
My accountant here in Australia says it would be better if I could get a price in 1990,
which is when I moved to Australia. Rather the price I paid for them in 1986 & 1987.

I know how much I paid for the first lot when they first floated.
I've also got a vague idea of what I paid for the second lot I bought in 87.
I'll have to use those prices if I can't find a 1990 value. I have read though
that the share price didn't really take off until BG. So maybe the 86 & 87
price won't be far off the 1990 price anyway.

cheers

greenglide

Historical share price data for bg group (ticker BG.L) is available from Yahoo for 1990 here https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=BG.L&b=1&a=06&c=1990&e=20&d=10&f=1990&g=d

Gives a price of around 40 - 44 p, obviously dependant on this being the correct part of the company.

empirebaypete

Thanks. I don't think that's the correct part of the company.
Sorry I should have stated in my first post that I've already checked there.

Given that the initial float price was 135p I don't think it's correct.
I seem to remember paying 160 p for some more in 1987.

EarthBoy

The historic share price for 1990 must refer to British Gas plc before it was split into several parts, because it didn't become Centrica and BG until 17 February 1997. Centrica was set up as a new company, and the rest of the old British Gas became BG.

https://www.centrica.com/investors/investor-information/demerger-history

empirebaypete

Going back over the weeks since I've been trying to find out this information I have contacted Centrica & I think it was Equiniti. I've just got emails back saying "British Gas, nothing to do with us".

I really didn't think it would be this hard to find out. I spoke to my accountant about it again yesterday.
He says we'll just have to put in an estimate. He reckons as long as it's a reasonable estimate the Australian Tax Office won't question it.

eskbanker

Surely if BG Group plc was the listed entity on the market at the time then there wouldn't have been a separately quoted one for what would presumably have been a wholly-owned subsidiary of the holding company?

empirebaypete

Well BG group wasn't founded until 97. I've checked and I do have the share certificates that were posted to me at the time.

If you look at the link Earthboy posted you'll see that British Gas was British Gas until 1997.

I guess I'll just have to put in an estimate. I read somewhere that the price didn't really take off until the BG takeover. I think I paid 160p in 1987 so I'd guess they were worth 250p in 1990?

cheers

Pete

grey_gym_sock

how does australian tax regard demergers and other capital reorganizations? i've no idea, but if it does it similarly to UK tax then that will reduce your base cost significantly.

there are 2 demergers involved: between BG and Centrica in 1997, and then between BG and Lattice in 2000. for UK capital gains tax, that means that your base cost in 1997 would be divided between your BG and Centrica shares, in proportion to the values of the shares immediately after the demerger. and then in 2000, your (already reduced) base cost for BG shares would be divided between your BG and Lattice shares, further reducing the base cost of the BG shares.

according to this document - http://investors.nationalgrid.com/~/media/Files/N/National-Grid-IR/documents/faq/capitalgainstax.pdf (only the first bit, re British Gas / BG from 1986-2000 is relevant - ignore the bits about how Lattice was later merged into National Grid), for the first demerger, the proportions are BG 72.947%, Centrica 27.053%; and for the second demerger, BG 65.6212%, Lattice 34.3788%.

combining the effects of those 2 demergers, that implies that only c. 47.8687% of the original cost base applies to BG.

there are also some other, rather confusing, capital reorganizations. see the above document, and also this TMF post: http://boards.fool.co.uk/i-was-a-sid-and-purchased-100-shares-since-the-5917441.aspx

in 1997 (later than, and separate from, the Centrica demerger), it appears that your number of BG shares would have been reduced, and you would also have received some B shares. if you sold the B shares, then part of your base cost is used against them, reducing the base cost of your BG shares. however, if you subsequently had your B shares converted back into regular BG shares in 1998, then there is no overall effect on your base cost of BG shares. but the number of BG shares held would be less than before the whole B share shenanigans started, so the base cost per share would rise a bit.

and in 1999, there was another reorganization, again reducing your number of BG shares, and also giving you some cash (or some bonds, if your shareholding was big enough). the base cost should be split between the BG shares and the cash(/bonds), again reducing your base cost for BG shares.

(see the percentage figures in the first link, above.)

there may be more reorganizations that i'm not aware of ...

to repeat: this is all how it would work in UK tax. australian tax might be totally different.

(note: my impression is that yahoo's historical prices are sometimes "adjusted" in an attempt to allow for the effects of subsequent capital reorganizations. however, i've no idea exactly how they do that, or how accurate it is. i think they may be right, in this case, with the general idea that the effective base cost may be lower than the actual historical price. but i wouldn't want to rely on the figures they give.)

empirebaypete

Thanks Grey Gym Sock.

I'm going to print out your post and the two links and give it all to my accountant.

He can press a few buttons on his calculator and magically work it out from there..... I hope.

funnily enough I did read the "I was a Sid" link before.

cheers and thanks for your help.

Pete