GOVERNMENT: A Pot of Gold

Out to 30,000 banks, trust companies and brokers this week went a special SEC report on a hunt for a "pot of gold." In the pot, said SEC Chairman Donald Cook, is about $25 million. It is made up of stock in 200 corporations now being reorganized. Unless the stock is turned in on new stock, said SEC, holders will lose their investment.

Many stockholders, said Cook, do not know that old stock in reorganized companies must be turned in. Since the unorganized companies have often been in long receivership, their address lists of stockholders are usually out of date. To find the stockholders, SEC has prodded companies into hiring tracer agencies.

A prime case of "missing stockholders" was in the reorganization of the Associated Gas & Electric Co. and subsidiaries into General Public Utilities Corp. (TIME, April 29, 1946). At the end of the five-year deadline for turning in old, stock, $7,000,000 was still outstanding. Notices were mailed again to stockholders, the public was peppered with announcements. But stockholders were highly suspicious of Associated's pleas for stock; they had been tricked several times before by financial shenanigans of company officials. When the stock continued to dribble in, SEC wrote directly to Associated security holders: "If you have not turned them in, because you thought that this exchange was just another of the unfair schemes used by the pre-bankruptcy management, [SEC assures] . . . you that this is not the case." The letter worked. All but 1¼% of the original stock is in, saving Associated stockholders nearly $5,000,000.