Lost Shares Certifictae

Alicante42

For the past 6 months, I have been trying to help my Sister replace some lost Shares certificates, and its proving to be a nightmare. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

The Shares were originally purchased from Barclays Stockbrokers in 1999.
Having contacted Barclays and spoken to them many times, they insist they cannot help. Their stockbroker services closed some 10 years ago. They did suggest tracking down the Company Shares registrar.

The shares are in "Aspen Technology Inc" which is a US company.
I have traced the Shares Registrar which is AST services in the USA.
After 2 months of communications with them, they confirm the shares do exist and is being held by a UK broker. But they cannot tell us the Broker name, which I found most frustrating.

I then tried contacting the usual share-dealing services in the UK, such as Equiniti, Capita and Computershare. But none of them deal with Aspen Technology shares.

I don't know how to proceed, specifically how to find out the UK broker name holding the Aspen Technology Shares. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

wmb194

Alicante42 said:

For the past 6 months, I have been trying to help my Sister replace some lost Shares certificates, and its proving to be a nightmare. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

The Shares were originally purchased from Barclays Stockbrokers in 1999.
Having contacted Barclays and spoken to them many times, they insist they cannot help. Their stockbroker services closed some 10 years ago. They did suggest tracking down the Company Shares registrar.

The shares are in "Aspen Technology Inc" which is a US company.
I have traced the Shares Registrar which is AST services in the USA.
After 2 months of communications with them, they confirm the shares do exist and is being held by a UK broker. But they cannot tell us the Broker name, which I found most frustrating.

I then tried contacting the usual share-dealing services in the UK, such as Equiniti, Capita and Computershare. But none of them deal with Aspen Technology shares.

I don't know how to proceed, specifically how to find out the UK broker name holding the Aspen Technology Shares. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

If these shares were held in certificated form why would a broker hold them? What precisely did the US registrar say? Did it mean to say that these shares have been transferred to a nominee account in the name of a UK stockbroker? I.e. they've been dematerialised?

Has your sister or anyone related to these in the past had dealings with stockbrokers? Barclays still has a stockbroker: it's now called Barclays Smart Investor but was previously known as Barclays Stockbrokers. The three you mention are primarily UK share registrars so are unlikely targets for US shares; you might need to work through the phone book e.g., AJ Bell, Hargreaves Lansdown, Halifax Stockbrokers, iWeb, [the list goes on] but a more convenient option could be to try Gretel and/or the unclaimed assets register (might be the same as Gretel).

https://www.gretel.co.uk/claim-misplaced-investments

https://www.theia.org/unclaimedassets

https://moneyweek.com/personal-finance/605198/how-to-trace-lost-accounts-and-share-in-ps50bn-of-unclaimed-assets