Bought IPO long ago, company never going public. Now what???

[Gee Spoolin]

Without going too much into details, I bought some IPO back in the early 2000's. Company had never going public and couple years later, I "kinda forgot" about my shares. Today I found the (paper) stock certificate, so I started looking online for info on this company, but search went fruitless. And yes, I already did search the website of the Secretary of State.

I'm now wondering what to do about this scenario. While I don't expect this IPO that is in my hands to make me rich, I'd hope that I can still get some money back. It would suck if the company is now dead but I don't know anymore I remember that I *MIGHT* have the CEO's email but unable to retrieve it at the moment.

So all you Wall Street gurus out there, please let me know if you have any advice. Thanks

[GeoffD]

"Bought IPO long ago, company never going public" is a complete contradiction. Either the company did an initial public offering and you bought shares or you somehow got shares in a privately held company.

I have hundreds of thousands of shares in various companies I used to work for that are now valueless. They're common shares that were washed out when the company merged into another company where the preferred shareholders were the only ones who got money out.

I do have some shares in Alcatel-Lucent that I need to chase down at some point. They're pretty much worthless so it's hardly worth the bother.

[twilk]

Well, since an IPO is the "initial public offering", it would be impossible for you to have bought into it if it wasn't public. Sounds like someone misled you or you simply didn't understand what you were purchasing.

[AIRider]

Let's just hope you did not spend a lot of money on that IPO.

[Gee Spoolin]

Okay, I bought the shares through a business management firm, which specialized in helping small private companies to obatin necessary fundings for growth. At the time, none of the shares of the company that I bought were publicly traded, and it didn't have a ticker symbol.

Prior to purchasing these shares, I had communications with the CEO/founder of the company. I liked what he had done for his business and I thought at the time it had great potentials. So when I was told that the company had hire the business management firm to do an IPO, I jumped in and bought my shares.

Now let me just put this out there right now... I didn't exact know what I was doing!! I was young and stupid but not in such a cool way , plus I got some money on me at the time just sitting around. Keep in mind that this was early 2000's... actually I think it was even BEFORE 9/11, economy was good and news was saying "IPO this" and "IPO that". Adding to the fact that I made many good kills in the stock market, I basically became an overconfidenced dumbass and ventured into playing with IPO's

[GeoffD]

Okay, I bought the shares through a business management firm, which specialized in helping small private companies to obatin necessary fundings for growth. At the time, none of the shares of the company that I bought were publicly traded, and it didn't have a ticker symbol.

Chances are the stock is now valueless. In most startups that fall on hard times, the last money in washes out the early money contributed by angels and bit players. The first question is whether you bought common or preferred stock. In most VC-backed startups, the founders & employees get common stock. The investors paying real money get preferred stock. If the company liquidates or gets sold, the preferred stock typically has preference over the common and the common shares are often valueless. If you paid money for common stock in a startup, the outfit that sold it to you played you for a sucker. If the company sold more stock later and didn't give you the option of participating to avoid diluting yourself down to nothing, you also were a sucker.

[AIRider]

When you made a killing in 2000s, did you do it on web startup companies?

[barry2952]

Chances are the stock is now valueless.

This.

I'm a little confused. Did you invest in an IPO or did you invest in a company named IPO?