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Not officially endorsed or supported. To keep up with HP/HPE-related stock issues, Join HPAA at no charge.

Find all your HP/HPE-related stock – and estimate cost basis: Stock   Stock Menu

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Stock issues for former Compaq employees   (Mar 28, 2023. May 5, 2024)


Stock. Due to the breakup of HP, you may now have shares in HPInc, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Agilent, Keysight, and DXC – held in multiple accounts – and may not have received cash payouts for Micro Focus or Perspecta. Your current cost basis depends on when you acquired stock as companies were spun out.

HPAA members have developed a step-by-step process to find all your HP/HPE-related stock – and estimate cost basis: Stock

Received a "Potential Private Retirement Benefit" letter from Social Security? How to decode the letter and who to contact, if necessary: Potential Benefit letter


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Stock Menu. Keep up with HP/HPE-related stock issues: Join HPAA at no charge. Question? Email: info@hpalumni.org

See all our information for Compaq alumni -- whether or not you ever worked for HP: https://www.hpalumni.org/compaq

HP merger with Compaq. Before the deal was announced, Compaq stock was down to $12 -- from $33 in 1999. Compaq management and board negotiated a merger at 18% over market price. (90% of Compaq shares were voted in favor; 51% of HP shares were voted in favor.)

Deal closed on May 3, 2002. Compaq shareholders received 0.6325 share of HPQ in exchange for each CPQ share. CPQ stock was retired. HWP stock symbol was changed to HPQ.

HP Inc. is the overall legal successor to companies acquired by Hewlett-Packard before the company was split into HP Inc and Hewlett Packard Enterprise on Nov 1, 2015. In general, responsibility for commitments to former U.S. employees of Compaq, DEC, EDS, etc. remain with HP Inc. -- regardless of whether their last business unit ended up in HP or HPE. (HP Breakup)

Instructions that CPQ shareholders received at the time of the acquisition of Compaq by HP -- including what to do with physical Compaq stock certificates: https://www.hpalumni.org/StockCompaq-Letter 
"Will I be provided with any information relative to the cost basis of my Compaq common stock that is being exchanged? No. It is important that you retain any information that you currently have relative to the cost basis of your Compaq common stock."

To check for lost stock and uncashed checks: https://www.hpalumni.org/Unclaimed. Compaq was incorporated in Delaware

HPAA's Complete Stock Decoder Tables for: Compaq   DEC    Tandem


Compaq employee stock purchase plan:

Official HPInc public page on employee stock, including Compaq ESPP: Employee Stock and Options

Advice from HPAA members who were on the Compaq employee stock purchase plan: 

- If you bought CPQ shares under the Compaq employee stock purchase plan, those shares were automatically converted to HPQ shares at the time of the merger. Unless you have sold or transferred them, the shares (and your corresponding new Hewlett Packard Enterprise shares) are being held by the last administrator of the plan, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney -- which is no longer being paid by the company for this work. Postal address: Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, 411 Borel Avenue Suite 220, San Mateo, CA 94089.

- To transfer your Compaq ESPP HPQ shares (and your corresponding new HPE shares) from Morgan Stanley to another financial institution at no charge, you can either: Go to https://www.stockplanconnect.com and download the stock transfer forms for faxing to Morgan Stanley -- or send an email to hpoptions@mssb.com  -- you will immediately receive a "deleted without reading" autoreply and, later, a personal reply with instructions and forms.

- Morgan Stanley customers are getting different results from different divisions of the company -- depending on whether they were participants in the Compaq Employee Stock Purchase Plan or had transferred their HP stock to a personal account at Morgan Stanley's local-office-based retail brokerage division. Morgan Stanley issues reported by members


Selling HPQ shares online is still possible at  https://www.stockplanconnect.com . However, selling HPE shares can only be done by calling 1-800-367-4777 or 1-801-617-7414.

Compaq Stock Splits
Record date and event:
December 31, 1997 2 for 1 split
July 14, 1997 5 for 2 split
May 31, 1994 3 for 1 split
December 1983 IPO
--from 2015 copy of HP website on Internet Archive

Tax basis. Plan administrators, transfer agents, and brokerages vary significantly in how (or if) they track gain/loss and cost basis for the many complex HP-related stock events – and what (if anything) they report to the IRS. Issues with major brokers

Your broker may have used a different formula than the one suggested in the tax basis letter provided by the company -- resulting in a somewhat different value. Check your brokerage account online -- or by examining a recent account statement -- to view your holdings in each stock going forward. HP/HPE tax basis letter

Disclaimer. The information contained in this website, or sites linked to it, is provided as a service to the community, and does not constitute financial, legal, or personal advice. We make no claims, promises or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the information contained in or linked to this website and associated sites. As financial, legal, and personal advice must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each case, and finances and laws are constantly changing, nothing provided here should be used as a substitute for the personal advice of competent financial, legal, and personal advisors.

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