Can I track down Tottenham Hotspur shares bought in 1998? CRANE ON THE CASE
Have you had a money problem? Get in touch: helen.crane@thisismoney.co.uk
Back in 1998 I read an article in the Daily Mail about an opportunity to buy shares in Tottenham Hotspur football club.
I always wanted to own a slice of a football club so I contacted the broker and bought 125 shares. I think I paid about £100.
I used to receive letters about the investment, but these stopped after a few years and I've since moved house.
I eventually forgot about the shares - until I came across the share certificate again recently.
However, I see the club delisted from the stock market in 2012. Do these shares still exist and are they worth anything? R.M, Bedfordshire
Helen Crane, This is Money's consumer champion, replies: As a Tottenham fan myself, I was keen to help you unravel this mystery.
While you're not a supporter of the club, you're a football enthusiast and the opportunity to buy shares piqued your interest back in 1998.
This was hardly a vintage season, with the team finishing 14th in the Premier League - but perhaps you were buoyed by the brief return of club legend Jurgen Klinsmann and backed the business acumen of then-chairman Alan Sugar to return the team to success.
At your estimated price of £100, you paid about 80p per share. The team's had ups and downs since then, to put it mildly - but have your shares seen more success?
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With the investment made pre-any online records, all you had was this piece of paper - and you told me your attempts to make contact with the club itself hadn't yielded any replies.
I did some digging to try and find out what happened to your investment.
The first thing to note is that the Tottenham Hotspur that you bought shares in back then is no longer a publicly-listed company.
It was the first football club to be listed on a stock exchange back in 1983 under the name Tottenham Hotspur Plc, but delisted from the AIM market in 2012 amid plans to build its new stadium.
However, shareholders like yourself were able to continue their investment in the club.
While Tottenham Hotspur Plc shares were cancelled on de-listing, they were re-registered as a private limited company called Tottenham Hotspur Ltd shortly after.
It's much trickier to buy and sell the shares, though. Shareholders can only do so on specialist exchanges such as Asset Match, with sales held every few months.
That means your shares were still out there somewhere, if we could just track them down.
I looked at the share certificate you were given for the share registrar - the agent some companies appoint to keep records of who owns shares and update their details when needed.
However, the firm listed had since been dissolved.
I then contacted Spurs, which eventually pointed me in the direction of its new registrar - MUFG Corporate Markets.
It seemed this organisation could hold the key to tracking down your shares.
I passed on their details and you called them, which I wasn't able to do on your behalf as they needed to verify your identity.
You said they were very helpful, and that you were able to update your contact details.
You were also told you could link the MUFG account to your account with Hargreaves Lansdown, where you hold other investments, so you could manage it as part of your portfolio.
The current value of your shares is £3 each, meaning your investment is worth £375.
A 275 per cent return in 28 years isn't too shabby - especially for an investment you'd forgotten about.
Inflation since that time comes in at 95 per cent. You told me this was 'a nice increase', and you plan to hold on to them.
Hopefully the team and your investment both go on a good run of form.
