Shares in 90s Privatised Public Utilities etc

The_Queen_of_Stops

Going through my father’s paperwork after his recent passing and I’ve discovered a number of share certificates for the public services privatised by the Conservative government in the 1990s. There are certificates for BT, East Midlands, Scottish Power, Scottish Hydro and Eurotunnel among others. How do I discover if these shares are still “live” especially where the privatised company has changed and name.

wmb194

The_Queen_of_Stops said:

Going through my father’s paperwork after his recent passing and I’ve discovered a number of share certificates for the public services privatised by the Conservative government in the 1990s. There are certificates for BT, East Midlands, Scottish Power, Scottish Hydro and Eurotunnel among others. How do I discover if these shares are still “live” especially where the privatised company has changed and name.

You can Google their histories but BT's easy, it's still around so contact its share registrar.

Eurotunnel ultimately became Getlink SE, a French company. You could ask its registrar.

East Midlands (Electricity) is long gone, see link below.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6546984/old-meb-shares-still-valid

Scottish Hydro was bought by SSE. Looks like it was an all share deal so should have received shares in SSE.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130516093250/http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/02/business/international-briefs-two-electric-suppliers-in-britain-to-merge.html

Scottish Power was bought by Iberdrola in 2007. It looks like there was a choice between cash and shares in Iberdrola so it'll depend on what he chose to do.

https://www.scottishpower.com/pages/ordinary_shares.aspx

People not throwing away defunct share certificates or at least leaving notes on them is a bit of a problem...

singhini

You sound like a friend of mine who inherited some shares and had no real idea of what shares and how many (about 5 years ago this was). 

Now this might work for you or might not but this is what my friend did in establishing what he had inherited. 

He looked at one of the share certificates in his name (National Grid i think) and it said something like "the company Equiniti are the online share portal administrator company we deal with" 

So he rang Equiniti and gave them the certificate number and they said "yes we can see you have shares with that company". He mentioned one or two other companies he had shares in and they said "yes we can see them too, and we can see you have shares with company A and company B aswell).

I think what he did was set up an account with Equiniti and registered the share certificate for National Grid and then National Grid sent him an activation code. 

Once the account with Equiniti was activated, he was able to import all the shares he had with all the companies (5 in total i think) and they all appeared within the one online account (you also have to register your bank account details against each company shares so the dividends can be paid directly into your bank account as they don't bother sending out paper cheques anymore).  

As mentioned, this may/may not work, but try giving someone like Equiniti a call and see if they can assist in some way (Equiniti might be the share registrar for some of those shares)

Section62

wmb194 said:

...

People not throwing away defunct share certificates or at least leaving notes on them is a bit of a problem...

This could apply in the case of the BT shares, as they have had at least one restructure which resulted in new certificates being issued and the old ones becoming redundant.

The other thing was some (all?) the big privatisations allowed investors to pay in instalments (certainly the case for BT and the RECs) - so there may be interim certificates which became void when the subsequent and final instalments were paid.

The_Queen_of_Stops

singhini said:

You sound like a friend of mine who inherited some shares and had no real idea of what shares and how many (about 5 years ago this was). 

Now this might work for you or might not but this is what my friend did in establishing what he had inherited. 

He looked at one of the share certificates in his name (National Grid i think) and it said something like "the company Equiniti are the online share portal administrator company we deal with" 

So he rang Equiniti and gave them the certificate number and they said "yes we can see you have shares with that company". He mentioned one or two other companies he had shares in and they said "yes we can see them too, and we can see you have shares with company A and company B aswell).

I think what he did was set up an account with Equiniti and registered the share certificate for National Grid and then National Grid sent him an activation code. 

Once the account with Equiniti was activated, he was able to import all the shares he had with all the companies (5 in total i think) and they all appeared within the one online account (you also have to register your bank account details against each company shares so the dividends can be paid directly into your bank account as they don't bother sending out paper cheques anymore).  

As mentioned, this may/may not work, but try giving someone like Equiniti a call and see if they can assist in some way (Equiniti might be the share registrar for some of those shares)

That’s handy as it seems my dad had an Equiniti account that held Barclays shares owned by my late grandmother. I’ll check that way first and see if anything turns up.

luci

The_Queen_of_Stops said:

singhini said:

You sound like a friend of mine who inherited some shares and had no real idea of what shares and how many (about 5 years ago this was). 

Now this might work for you or might not but this is what my friend did in establishing what he had inherited. 

He looked at one of the share certificates in his name (National Grid i think) and it said something like "the company Equiniti are the online share portal administrator company we deal with" 

So he rang Equiniti and gave them the certificate number and they said "yes we can see you have shares with that company". He mentioned one or two other companies he had shares in and they said "yes we can see them too, and we can see you have shares with company A and company B aswell).

I think what he did was set up an account with Equiniti and registered the share certificate for National Grid and then National Grid sent him an activation code. 

Once the account with Equiniti was activated, he was able to import all the shares he had with all the companies (5 in total i think) and they all appeared within the one online account (you also have to register your bank account details against each company shares so the dividends can be paid directly into your bank account as they don't bother sending out paper cheques anymore).  

As mentioned, this may/may not work, but try giving someone like Equiniti a call and see if they can assist in some way (Equiniti might be the share registrar for some of those shares)

That’s handy as it seems my dad had an Equiniti account that held Barclays shares owned by my late grandmother. I’ll check that way first and see if anything turns up.

I have Aviva shares that were originally administered by Equiniti. In 2011, they changed the administrator from Equiniti to www.computershare.com When I logged into Computershare, my SSE (formerly Scottish Hydro Electric) shares were also visible. I don't know much about shares, but it may be worth checking with Computershare as well.

jimjames

wmb194 said:

The_Queen_of_Stops said:

Going through my father’s paperwork after his recent passing and I’ve discovered a number of share certificates for the public services privatised by the Conservative government in the 1990s. There are certificates for BT, East Midlands, Scottish Power, Scottish Hydro and Eurotunnel among others. How do I discover if these shares are still “live” especially where the privatised company has changed and name.

You can Google their histories but BT's easy, it's still around so contact its share registrar.

Eurotunnel ultimately became Getlink SE, a French company. You could ask its registrar.

People not throwing away defunct share certificates or at least leaving notes on them is a bit of a problem...

Eurotunnel has been through many iterations as have some of the others. If the father has been in the same house for the last 20+ years and their address matches the certificates then the chances are that the new certificates exist somewhere in the house or the shares have previously been sold which requires certificates to be submitted.

wmb194 said:

The_Queen_of_Stops said:

Going through my father’s paperwork after his recent passing and I’ve discovered a number of share certificates for the public services privatised by the Conservative government in the 1990s. There are certificates for BT, East Midlands, Scottish Power, Scottish Hydro and Eurotunnel among others. How do I discover if these shares are still “live” especially where the privatised company has changed and name.

People not throwing away defunct share certificates or at least leaving notes on them is a bit of a problem...

Good reminder to check my old certificates and dispose of the invalid ones

DRS1

Some of these companies are paying dividends.  It may be an idea to check bank statements to see what is coming in and from where.

Or the father could have set up an online account with an investment platform and these shares could be on that.

wmb194

jimjames said:

wmb194 said:

The_Queen_of_Stops said:

Going through my father’s paperwork after his recent passing and I’ve discovered a number of share certificates for the public services privatised by the Conservative government in the 1990s. There are certificates for BT, East Midlands, Scottish Power, Scottish Hydro and Eurotunnel among others. How do I discover if these shares are still “live” especially where the privatised company has changed and name.

You can Google their histories but BT's easy, it's still around so contact its share registrar.

Eurotunnel ultimately became Getlink SE, a French company. You could ask its registrar.

People not throwing away defunct share certificates or at least leaving notes on them is a bit of a problem...

Eurotunnel has been through many iterations as have some of the others. If the father has been in the same house for the last 20+ years and their address matches the certificates then the chances are that the new certificates exist somewhere in the house or the shares have previously been sold which requires certificates to be submitted.

wmb194 said:

The_Queen_of_Stops said:

Going through my father’s paperwork after his recent passing and I’ve discovered a number of share certificates for the public services privatised by the Conservative government in the 1990s. There are certificates for BT, East Midlands, Scottish Power, Scottish Hydro and Eurotunnel among others. How do I discover if these shares are still “live” especially where the privatised company has changed and name.

People not throwing away defunct share certificates or at least leaving notes on them is a bit of a problem...

Good reminder to check my old certificates and dispose of the invalid ones

According to this page it sounds like London listed CDIs (certificate of deposit) may have been issued to British investors and Google says CDIs cannot be issued as certificates. It mentions Computershare so I'm guessing this is the registrar.

https://www.getlinkgroup.com/en/shareholders-investors/individual-shareholders/crest-depository-interest-cdi/

jimjames

wmb194 said:

jimjames said:

wmb194 said:

The_Queen_of_Stops said:

Going through my father’s paperwork after his recent passing and I’ve discovered a number of share certificates for the public services privatised by the Conservative government in the 1990s. There are certificates for BT, East Midlands, Scottish Power, Scottish Hydro and Eurotunnel among others. How do I discover if these shares are still “live” especially where the privatised company has changed and name.

You can Google their histories but BT's easy, it's still around so contact its share registrar.

Eurotunnel ultimately became Getlink SE, a French company. You could ask its registrar.

People not throwing away defunct share certificates or at least leaving notes on them is a bit of a problem...

Eurotunnel has been through many iterations as have some of the others. If the father has been in the same house for the last 20+ years and their address matches the certificates then the chances are that the new certificates exist somewhere in the house or the shares have previously been sold which requires certificates to be submitted.

wmb194 said:

The_Queen_of_Stops said:

Going through my father’s paperwork after his recent passing and I’ve discovered a number of share certificates for the public services privatised by the Conservative government in the 1990s. There are certificates for BT, East Midlands, Scottish Power, Scottish Hydro and Eurotunnel among others. How do I discover if these shares are still “live” especially where the privatised company has changed and name.

People not throwing away defunct share certificates or at least leaving notes on them is a bit of a problem...

Good reminder to check my old certificates and dispose of the invalid ones

According to this page it sounds like London listed CDIs (certificate of deposit) may have been issued to British investors and Google says CDIs cannot be issued as certificates. It mentions Computershare so I'm guessing this is the registrar.

https://www.getlinkgroup.com/en/shareholders-investors/individual-shareholders/crest-depository-interest-cdi/

Yes they are CDIs but they have paper letters with the details and also copies of dividends paid out each year so if they still exist there should be a paperwork trail. Whether/when the father moved house is the key question