Expert: Steven Taylor - 5/12/2009

Question
my step father purchased stocks through bongard & co and company was sold or went bankrupt. how do i look for these stocks and is there a number that i can try to call bongard & co.

Answer
Unfortunately, I think Bongard is long, long, long out of business. It was so long ago I have no information on what ultimately happened to the accounts held in street name.

If you know in which Province your step-father conducted business with Bongard, you can contact the Provincial Securities Commission and see if they have any information. If your step-father was never contacted regarding any change in his account status, it is likely the shares were eventually turned over to the government for safekeeping for him as he would be considered lost. In that case, you can try searching the lost property registers under your step-father's name and see if any are still holding anything for him. You need to search every State or Province in which he lived and/or conducted business from the time he first bought stock until today. You can search many of them for free online at http://www.unclaimed.org/ However, the period in which the government will hold unclaimed assets varies - some will hold it for only 7 years, while others will do so indefinitely, with the rest falling somewhere in between.