Expert: Steven Taylor - 4/4/2011

Question
QUESTION: I have a total of 4'000 (nr. 1014 and 1015)shares of the Oracle Resources ltd. I cannot find them in the stocks. What is the value and where can I sell them? Please see also picture in the annex.

ANSWER: Gabriel, from the information I have available, the company was acquired in 1989 by American Eagle Petroleum for 55 cents per share cash.

If the registered holder of the shares did not receive a check at the time of the acquisition, the money would have been turned over to the government for safekeeping. The owner needs to search through every state or Province in which they lived from the date they bought the shares to the date of acquisition. You can search many of them for free at www.missingmoney.com and www.naupa.org. They will need to search under the name exactly as it appears on the certificate.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for your very quick answer. I had already read a similar answer and tried to contact www.missingmoney as well as www.naupa. Unfortunately I am in Europe. Both sites do not accept a foreign address and my name is not stated on the shares. Is there a central US or Canadian register or a place in Europe to go for?
Thank you again.

Answer
Gabriel, those sites are the central registers for lost property sites. You don't need to put in an address to search.

If you were to find the money in the name of the person listed on the certificate, you would have to prove that the person had legally transferred the shares to you. Certificates are not bearer instruments, and there is a specific legal process required to transfer certificates and ownership of stock. At this point, if you cannot do that, the search is moot. If, however, you can prove transfer of ownership, you can also try contacting the states directly. Many of them have links to their lost property departments on their government homepages.