FundSvcs Community

Hi all!

We have received a donation of a paper stock certificate that has already been registered in the name of Earlham College. I have never dealt with a certificate already registered in our name. What is the appropriate valuation date to use in this case? The issue date on the certificate or the postmark date? 

Then, we should just need to complete the Stock Power Form ourselves and send that to our broker, right? (Our broker is with Fidelity if that helps!)

It has been a very long time since we've had a paper certificate and those were always still in the donor's name- so just wanting to be sure we do this correctly. 

Thanks for any guidance!

Melissa

If the certificate is already in your name, the date of gift is the date the certificate was issued in your name.  Any changes in value since then are considered investment gains or losses (even if you did not have the certificate in hand!).

And, as it is in your name, no stock power is required - it is yours!

John

Wonderful! Thank you so much for getting back to me, John!

Re: stock power- I have just confirmed with Fidelity that because this is for a business entity, the authorized person on the account is "not identically" registered to the account name and as such will need a "Irrevocable Stock or Bond Power Form". Putting this here in case anyone runs into this in the future!

Thanks again!

Melissa

Who did they say the stock power needed to be registered for?  This is not anything I ever needed to do when I was at Duke.  As long as the certificate was registered in the name of Duke University, we just handed the certificate to our broker.  Indeed, additional paperwork was necessary when we went to sell the stock.  But not before then.

But that was twenty years ago.  I am curious as to what this new "rule" is all about!  Unless, that is, you are saying that the certificate was not registered in the legal name of Earlham.

The certificate is indeed in the legal name of Earlham but Fidelity's instructions was to "sign their names exactly as it appears on the certificate(s)". When I spoke with the rep, I asked if that meant we should sign "Earlham College" on it and they told me because it is a business entity, that would not work. Thus needing to complete the additional paperwork...

I believe a corporate resolution authorizing an individual to sign for the organization takes care of that problem.  I recall our CFO at Duke had this authority and was legally able to sign on behalf of Duke all the time.

John