Expert: Steven Taylor - 8/19/2009

Question
My aunt just asked me to research a stock certificate she has to see if it is worth anything or not.  It says that she has 334 of Westore Mines Limited and is dated July 26, 1957.  The Montreal Trust Company of Regina Toronto is the transfer agent and registrar.  She also has three receipts of stock purchases from Winston Mining Corp, they were placed by investment broker Green & Company of Saskatoon, Canada.  There are 1000 shares total with Certificate Numbers.  These were purchased at different times in 1956.  It appears that Winston merged with Westore at some point and then was purchased by Bison Petroleum and minerals because she has a letter from July 16, 1962 saying that there was a 1 for 13 swap of Westore to Bison shares.  Any help you can give to assist is appreciated.  Thanks!

Answer
Scott, I believe you are correct - Winson did a 1 for 3 reverse and became Westore. That would account for the 334 Westore. Westore then did a 1 for 13 reverse and became Bison Petroleum and Minerals. That would leave your aunt with approximately 26 Bison. In 1987, the Company changed its name to United Bison and did a 1 for 100 reverse stock split immediately followed by a 100 for 1 forward split. The reason for the two splits was they had a lot of shareholders with under 100 shares. If they had less than 100 shares, the reverse split would move them to less than 1 new share, and they would receive cash in lieu of the new shares. The 100 for 1 forward split would then make all the other shareholders whole again. Unfortunately, it appears your aunt would have been taken out at this point. Chances are, she would not have had to send in the certificates and instead just received a check around that time for her fractional shares, and that is likely the end of the line for your Aunt here.

If she had more than 100 Bison, her shares would have eventually become KHD Humboldt, which trades on the NYSE. YOu can check with KHD's transfer agent, Mellon, to see if they can confirm the information. If it is correct and she had only 26 Bison pre-1 for 100 reverse and she did not receive a check because they did not know where your Aunt was (although, since she received the original Bison letter, chances are they had her address#, the money would have been turned over to the government. It is a good idea to search in every State or Province in which your Aunt has lived from the time she originally acquired the shares until the split. You can search many of them online for free at www.missingmoney.com and www.naupa.org #try both, as some States and Provinces participate in one and not the other).