Stock Recovery and Cost Basis for HP/HPE-related stock. (Mar 26, 2024)  Question? Email: info@hpalumni.org

From the independent association for former employees of HP and HPE -- and those in the process of leaving.

You may now have stock in HP, HPE, Agilent, Keysight, or DXC in various accounts -- and may not have received cash payouts for Micro Focus or Perspecta.

Your accounts may be at employee stock purchase or option/incentive plan administrators, at transfer agents for spun-off companies, or at your brokerage. Perhaps old paper certificates.

Your current cost basis depends on when you acquired stock as companies were merged or spun out. Members have found that 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.

HPAA members have developed data and advice on HP/HPE-related stock -- including spreadsheets to verify your records or estimate cost basis for employee stock purchases. Plus stock info for predecessor and successor companies.

The questions:

No one really cares about your employment-related stock -- but you.

What happened?  Its complicated... HP spun off Agilent. Agilent spun off Keysight. Compaq and EDS were sold to HP. HP spun off HPE. HPE spun off DXC, which spun off Perspecta, which was bought by Peraton. HPE Software was spun off to UK-based Micro Focus, which paid out cash, and was bought by Canada-based OpenText. [There'll be a quiz on Friday.] Table with links to details of each spinoff: HP/HPE Spinoff Shares and Cash   Agilent Spinoffs

Where is all my stock? Your HP, HPE, and spinoff stock is often held in multiple accounts -- related to employee stock purchase, option and incentive plans over the years, or at transfer agents for spinoff companies; or in personal brokerage accounts. Steps to find it all: Where is my stock? 

Acquisition dates and cost basis accurate? Records at plan administrators and stock brokerages often don't have the original acquisition date or correctly-calculated current cost basis for each lot of acquired shares -- a major impact on what they report to the IRS when the stock is sold. An "Unknown" basis defaults to $0. You can easily wind up paying taxes twice on the same transaction. Obtaining Stock Records

Employee purchase spreadsheets. HPAA's Stock Spreadsheets

- Official quarterly cost basis data for every HP stock purchase from 1959 through 2000 -- with resulting calculated lot-by-lot cost basis for HPQ, Agilent, Keysight, HPE, DXC, and Micro Focus "A" shares.

- Estimate your average cost basis over any span of HP employment from 1959 through 2000 for HPQ, Agilent, Keysight, HPE, DXC, and Micro Focus "A" shares.

- Calculate ordinary income/capital gain lot-by-lot from 11/2000 to 10/2017 for HPQ, Agilent, Keysight, HPE, DXC, and Micro Focus "A" shares.

What will be reported? Members have found that 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. Admin and Broker Issues  

Taxes. Member Advice on Tax Return  FWIW, to date no member has indicated -- privately or on the HPAA forums -- that their returns have been questioned by the IRS due to how they reported the many extremely complex HP/HPE-related stock transactions. Save the documents and spreadsheets you used.

Any strays?  Uncashed stock-buyout or dividend checks   Paper Certificates   Stock Options   Potential Benefit letter from Social Security.

Reference info:  Map of stock pages on this site   HPAA's Complete Stock Decoder Table   Public Price History Charts   Official Investor FAQs with current Transfer Agents 

Suggested next step: Basic Stock Issues