My grandmother left me some shares of stock. How do I find out how many shares she had and value.?

Question

The stock was Starwood Hotels and Pacific Telesis/Media One. I need to close her trust and I need the value of stock for December, 1999.

Answer 1

You should try and get broker statements from the executor of the trust. That will tell you the amount of share held in the two companies. If you want to verify share price try yahoo finance. It has a good historical price feature that allows you to go back a few years. It also has a symbol lookup feature if you do not know the ticker symbol for the two stocks.

Answer 2

As for the number of shares she had, you will need to find the stock certificates and the any 1099 from the holding company.
As for price you can easily find for Starwood Hotels in Yahoo Finance. As for the Pacific Telesis and Media One, that is a little difficult because they no longer exists. I suggest you go to a financial consulant for that because they have the contact to do that kind of research. Good Luck!

Answer 3

Each of those companies had or has a website and investor relations department.

Where is the stock now? If it is held in book-entry form by the company they can help you directly.

If she used a broker, ask them.

And best of luck with the Pacific Telesis/Media One. Those stocks can be a mess since they are constantly buying and selling one another. You could have something worth a fortune, or less than 32 cents.

Answer 4

I had this happen to me when my mom passed away.
You need to see if she has a stock certificate in her paperwork that she left behind. She may have left it in a bank vault or somewhere in her home. This will indicate the date she purchased the shares and how many there were.

She should also have received paperwork from time to time, perhaps she was paid dividends or should have other correspondence from the company where she purchased the stock from. You can contact this company and ask questions after explaining the situation.

If all else fails, every bank has free investors that you can make an appointment with who can help you locate the info on the stock and guide you as to what your options are.