one day to discover that your grandparents once bought shares that are now worth a fortune, and you still have them because they never sold them. Well, not to get anyone’s hopes up, but a Chandigarh doctor found himself in this fortunate position. Out of the blue, he discovered that his grandfather had bought SBI (State Bank of India) shares worth Rs. 500 in 1994. To his surprise, he found the share certificate issued back then, indicating that they had never been sold.
Taking to social media, the pediatric surgeon, Dr. Tanmay Motiwala, initiated what would soon become a viral post, titled “The power of holding equity.” He reminisced, “My grandparents had purchased SBI shares worth 500 ₹ (Rs. 500) in 1994. They had forgotten about it. In fact, they had no idea why they purchased it and if they even held it.” Motiwala further revealed, “I found some such certificates while consolidating family’s holdings in a place. (Already had sent for converting them to Demat).”
As expected, his post gained traction, sparking a flurry of reactions from the online community.
However, everyone was eager to learn the current value of those shares, a question that the OP himself answered in a subsequent post. “It is around 3.75L excluding dividends. Not a big amount but yeah 750x in 30 years. Indeed is big.”
He also shed light on the lengthy process of converting the physical share certificates into his Demat account. According to SEBI, anyone holding physical share certificates must first convert them into electronic format before trading or transferring the shares.
“Seems like so many people are facing this issue. We actually took the help of an advisor/ consultant. Because the process itself is very painful and long ( There may be spelling errors in name, address, signature mismatch etc etc). Even with an advisor it took time but we have been able to do for majority of certificates,” he elaborated, emphasising that he currently has no plans to sell the SBI shares as he doesn’t need the cash at present.
Another shared their own experience, saying, “It happened with me too, my grandfather had 500 shares of SBI, he was am employee, somehow after my father’s death, I got these bonds I was 17 later went to nearer share broker and after some procedure we were able to sell, this how I started to invest in equity.” Meanwhile, some users raised questions about the accuracy of the growth rate calculations.
Nevertheless, since being shared, the post has garnered a whopping 886K views on the platform, captivating the attention of many