a couple of things you might consider. it is not clear from your post
if you inherited this stock this year or in 1994. if your inheritance
happened this year the november 94 price should be of no consequence
as you will establish a cost basis as of the date of death.
you should also be aware, if as i suspect from your post, what you
have is certificates dated somewhere between 1984 when at&t was
divested of the regional bell companies and the 11/94 date you
mention, some of the companies you inquired about no longer exist in
that form. SBC (SBC - NYSE) and Bellsouth (BLS - NYSE) continue to
exist and are listed on the NYSE. The other five have all been merged
into other companies. Airtouch wound up as part of Vodaphone (VOD -
NYSE). Nynex was absorbed into Bell Atlantic. Bell Atlantic became a
piece of Verizon (VZ - NYSE). Pacific Telesis is part of SBC.
the reason you want to know that is if you are holding certificates,
(and i think you are because stock of those companies as titled
couldn't exist on a brokerage statement for years now), establishing
ownership of shares in the companies that no longer exist and you are
trying to sell those shares, this will complicate and slow the process
a bit. ditto if those shares are registered in someone else's name,
such as your fiances dad. as i can't be sure that my suppositions are
correct i won't overrun you with details but expect to provide
documentation establishing death and your right to the shares before
they can be reregistered or sold. also, someone now has to do the work
and figure out what compensation was offered years ago in exchange for
these shares and how much of that is still available. without looking
it up my best guess in these cases is all of it but again, what you
currently actually own as compared to what the certificate you are
holding says you own needs to be clearly established before you can
liquidate.
in order to determine the value of your holdings you can contact each
transfer agent and they will walk you through it and tell you what
they require to reissue the certificates. you can contact investor
relations at each of the surviving corporations. they are likely to be
of help or give you a more direct route to the active transfer agent.
or you can deliver the certificates to your broker and have the
brokerage firm's reorganization department do all the work. some firms
will do this as part of their service, some will charge for the
effort. depending on your relationship with your broker, i wouldn't
pay for the reorg work. tell the broker when the certificates are
clear he will get the sell transaction, the possible reinvest
transaction and his fee for those transactions.
final thought, if you are actually holding old certificates some
possibilites exist. the good one, somewhere along the way the
companies lost touch with your relative maybe suggesting why the
exchanges were never done. if that is the case and these are
legitimate registered shares and the various companies could not
locate your father-in-law then they have been putting his dividends
and split shares and the like in an account for him. if that is the
case, make sure you lay claim to those assets. the bad one, old
certificates like this often exist because the holder couldn't
remember where he put them and somewhere along the way claimed them as
lost and got replacements from the companies in question. if that is
the case then the certs claimed as lost are void and valueless because
they have been duplicated.
good luck and hope i didn't waste your time with things that weren't
applicable because i certainly went beyond the scope of your question. |
