Expert: Steven Taylor - 11/12/2011

Question
Going through my mothers papers as her executor I discovered she had purchased 200 shares of Abitibi back in May 1970, bought through Barclay and Crawford Ltd 48 Youge St Toronto.  I have since found out that Abitibi changed ownership and it is now owned by Teck Resources. I found her stock certificates proving ownership. I have tried to contact Barclay and Crawford but cannot find them or determine if they are even exist today.
Can you give me some advice as to how to proceed from here, to determine todays value of the stock?

Answer
Peter, you are correct that Abitibi Copper would now be part of Teck. The problem is that Abitibi went through numerous capital changes and reverse stock splits. It did a 1 for 3 reverse, then a merger on the basis of 1 new for 5.7903, then another merger on the basis of 1 new for 22 old. On the basis of those changes, your mother's original 200 shares would have been reduced to less than 1 share. The 1 for 22 merger was into Aur, which was acquired by Teck in 2007 on the basis of $41 per share cash or 0.8749 of a Class B share of Teck plus 1 cent per share.

I think there is a very good chance that when the Aur merger was completed, your mother was probably sent a check for her fractional share, and the certificate cancelled by the transfer agent. If not, and they rounded up, she might have a single share of Teck. You can find out by contacting the current transfer agent, Canadian Stock Transfer (http://www.canstockta.com/investorServices.do).