Forgotten Treasure Unearthed: How a man discovered L&T shares worth Rs 25 lakh after ages

Hidden treasure has fascinated people since ages. One feels elated if they found some expensive thing that they hadn't thought of in their wildest dreams. Vishal Kappor, a senior executive at an MNC, experienced it recently. He approached Share Samadhan, a solution provider to unclaimed investments, for dematerialisation of physical shares of some of the companies. Kapoor had these shares for years, but he never got time to check company names and quantity of shares.     

Share Samadhan evaluated his stocks and as per its internal practice, it also searched his shareholding in its database based on his name, father name and address.

To its surprise, Share Samadhan's research team found that apart from the details of shares given by Kapoor, shares of Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) were also standing in his name.

These shares were worth Rs 25 lakhs approx in current times.

The company passed on information to Kapoor, who had no idea about having purchased any shares of L&T ever.

However, he remembered that his father used to purchase shares in his name when he was minor.

Share Samadhan read the address mentioned on the L&T shares and found that the address on which its research team found the details of L&T shares was also Kapoor's father’s.

It gave the company more surety that there should be shareholding in his name.

But that was just the first part of finding, the next challenge was to know whether he would also get bonus shares if the company had announced. And after that, how he can dematerialise them.

Vikash Jain, co-founder & director at Share Samadhan, said: "We started communicating with L&T and after submitting initial KYC documents of Mr Kapoor and his father, we came to know that the shares of L&T were actually held in his name in the minor category and was purchased by his father as a guardian."

Jain said, "The company also confirmed that the bonus shares announced by company were lying undelivered with the company. Thus, we had to proceed for duplicate issue of shares issued originally and bonus shares would be provided by company directly after updation of kyc."

After Share Samadhan got confirmation from L&T, it initiated the process of recovery of those shares.

Since it did not have original shares in its possession, it had to apply for duplicate issue of those shares.

L&T also asked for old address proof against which shares were purchased.

Arranging the old address was also a difficult task for Kapoor.

He had to look for old documents of his father.

After making some serious efforts, Kapoor somehow arranged the address proof from his old records.

Thus, Share Samadhan submitted the relevant documents for duplicate issue and to also to prove that client was now a major.

After due verification, L&T issued Kapoor the shares which are worth around Rs 25 lakh at present.

Finding shares existence of which was unknown to Kapoor for several years, was a pleasant surprise for Kapoor.

After all, these shares were part of emotional legacy from his father, who had invested in his name long ago.