Discovering a stock’s historic trading information after it has been de-listed, perhaps as a result of bankruptcy or as a result of a merger or acquisition, can prove surprisingly challenging. You would think in today’s “information rich” world, old stock quotes would literally be cheaper than “a dime a dozen.” Not so. This article details a specific example, with an unusual solution.....
While only a specific example, I have struggled over the course of several weeks to ascertain historical quotes for the National Commerce Bank Corporation. As often happens, this bank merged with another institution Suntrust, in October of 2004.
Despite being a seasoned investor, I am at least in part responsible for my own dilemma. By failing to submit my specific desires to Suntrust,
the acquiring company in this merger, prior to the deadline, "by default" my DRIP (dividend reinvestment plan) Account, as well as shares held in my retail account, were sold and converted in part to cash creating and immediate tax consequence and in part to Suntrust common stock. While there was little time to communicate my election (which was to transfer 100% of my holdings into Suntrust common stock), there was an adequate window. I blame a combination of my own procrastination, with less than accurate advice from an agent of my financial advisor who indicated that all shares held in retail accounts are automatically converted to stock without individual investor intervention (not true in this case). I should also note that at least part of my desire to convert to retail stock was to avoid the tax nightmare associated with the sale of this long term investment.
My DRIP Account liquidation actually presented less problems than shares in my retail account. (This is likely not to be the case for many.) I have been a long term advocate of using Quicken to track my personal, investment and small business finances. Quicken has presented some challenges through the years-- which will be the subject of another article-- the benefits of timely and accurate financial information far outweigh the occasional hassles of upgrading and tracking this software.
As a result of religiously inputting quarterly DRIP purchases, I was able to accurately identify my cost basis of this "forced sale" with a few mouse clicks. Since my NCBC Drip account spanned well over a decade, including multiple stock splits, easy access to this information isn’t trivial. Investors trying to reconstruct a cost basis without paper documentation, may, in part, find this link helpful. (I do not know what IRS requirements are for documenting DRIP purchases and disclaim any information on this page as serving to provide professional tax or accounting advice.)
Since my initial purchase of National Bancorporation (NCBC) took place in 1990 I have changed Financial Advisors on two occasions. Additionally, my current advisor has changed clearing houses on three occasions. After a lot of digging through old files I was able to unearth photocopies of the two certificates which were transferred to my retail account with my current advisor. (Don’t ask how many hours I spent trying to find
this information.)