How I found £428 I didn't know I had

I am 62. I have worked in finance for more than 30 years. I have read more annual reports than novels, which tells you everything about my evenings.

So when an email arrived from a share registrar, telling me there was money waiting for me, I knew exactly what to do. I decided it was spam.

In my defence, it looked like every email I have spent years telling people to ignore. Money with your name on it. A company you don't remember. Please confirm who you are. If my mother had shown me that email, I would have told her to delete it, and I would have felt very wise.

It was real.

The money came from shares I once owned in a company called eProp Services plc. I had not "filed them away somewhere". I had forgotten them completely, like an umbrella in a restaurant.

Here is what happened while I wasn't looking. eProp Services plc became eProp Services Limited. Then it changed its name again, to nurtur.group. Then, in 2025, it was taken over through a scheme of arrangement. That is a court-approved way for a buyer to take all of a company's shares at once. When it happens, the shareholders get paid. Whether they are paying attention or not.

I was not paying attention. So my share sat there, waiting for me. £428.

It is not a yacht. It is not even a nice dinghy. But it was mine, and I had no idea it existed. And I am supposed to be the professional.

Think about how this happens. Nobody stole my shares. The company didn't disappear. It just changed its name twice and got bought. If I had gone looking for "eProp", I would have found a name that no longer exists, and I would have given up. The trail didn't go cold because the money vanished. It went cold because the name did.

So here is the lesson, said once and plainly, because I am Dutch: most lost shares are not lost. They are renamed.

That is why we built the Old Shares Finder. It is free. You type the old name, "eProp" in my case, and it shows you every name the company has had, from Companies House. It shows you that eProp Services plc is now NURTUR.GROUP LTD, company number 09210707. Where we have checked it on an official page, it shows the takeover and the registrar, with the source. Then it gives you a plain letter you can send to the registrar yourself.

It doesn't ask your name. It stores nothing. We don't give advice, and we never hold or move your money. You deal with the registrar directly, because it is your money, not ours.

Three things I would tell my younger, more arrogant self:

1. If a registrar writes to you, don't click, and don't just delete it either. Find the registrar's official website yourself and contact them from there. Here is how to tell a real one from a scam.
2. Search for the old name, not the new one. The old name is the one you remember. The finder does the rest.
3. Never pay someone to tell you what the registrar will tell you for free. If anyone asks for money upfront to "release" yours, walk away.

We always point people to the free government tracing route first, and we take nothing from financial advisers.

So: did you once own shares in a company you can't find any more? Type its old name into the Old Shares Finder. Worst case, you lose two minutes. Best case, you get a very good dinner.

Frank