Students seeking thousands of `missing’ LAC shareholders

Those yellowed shareholder certificates may be worth something after all if they happen to represent a stake in LAC Minerals or any of its 50 predecessor companies.

In an attempt to clean up its shareholder list, LAC has hired two summer students to find an estimated 5,000 missing persons — investors the gold producer lost track of during a series of amalgamations, the last of which occurred in 1985.

Included on LAC’s hit list are the significant number of shareholders who have failed to convert predecessor shares into LAC shares. Some of the more common company names include Wright Hargreaves Mines, Little Long Lac Gold Mines, Willroy Mines, Lakeshore Mines, Les Mines Est Malartic and LAC Minerals.

“We find people who have had shares in five or six predecessor companies just sitting in the corner in a strongbox,” said Ewan Mason, an MBA student from the University of Toronto. “You tell them how many LAC shares they own and they’re really shocked.”

In many cases, one share of a predecessor company is worth several shares of LAC. For instance, a person holding 50 Lakeshore shares would be entitled to receive 430 shares of LAC common stock, trading recently at $8.50.

Legitimate shareholders will also receive accrued dividends.

Mason tells the story of one woman who inherited 18,000 LAC shares when her husband died last year. But when the investigators dug a little deeper, they discovered she also owned a stash of predecessor share certificates, or the equivalent of about 20,000 LAC common shares.

Some of the missing shareholders are scattered across the globe, said Mason, but most are living in either Canada or the U.S. A good portion of them are elderly, and most own 100-200 shares.

Mason says he will not have a clear idea of how much money is tied up in the missing shares until more shareholders have been tracked down.

LAC Minerals produced 785,028 oz. gold in 1990, realizing an average price of US$414 per oz.