Expert: Steven Taylor - 11/5/2010

Question
I have 187 shares of Macrotrends Ventures Inc from 1987. Can you tell me if the company still exists, and how I can find the value of this stock? Thank you.  

Answer
Bobby, from the information I have available, Macrotrends did a 1 for 8 reverse split and became Global Election. Global was acquired by Diebold in 2001 on the basis of 22.7 cents plus 0.0242 of a Diebold share for every 1 share of Global. Taking into consideration the 1 for 8 reverse split, you would have received less than 1 share of Diebold, so they would have likely given you a nominal cash payment instead.

If you did not receive the cash, it would have probably been turned over the government missing property office for safekeeping. That is on a State or Provincial level, so you need to search the offices of every State or Province in which you lived from the time you first acquired the shares until today. You can search many of them online for free at www.missingmoney.com and www.naupa.org (search both - they have different information). Search using your name exactly as it appears on the certificate, even if it is misspelled or abbreviated.