Recording a stock demerger....

John Ralls jralls at ceridwen.fremont.ca.us
Wed Aug 9 13:23:04 EDT 2017


> On Aug 8, 2017, at 12:08 PM, gc.20.reachmm at neverbox.com wrote:
> 
> Folks,
> 
> I'd like to understand how one goes about recording a stock demerger
> transaction in GNU cash.
> I'd been owning X shares of a company A, which underwent a demerger, which
> resulted in all
> shareowners of company A, getting shares in Company B in the ratio of 1:1.
> So I end up
> with X shares each in both company A and B. The cost of acquisition is to
> be taken as 60:40%
> of the pre demerger cost of acquisition of company A.
> 
> I can not record this as a split, since it involves a new company B.
> I can not record this as a transfer, since there is no change in the number
> of shares in company A
> post the demerger (Its just that the acquisition price changes). How do I
> handle this?

The normal term for this is "a spin-off".

You can use the split assistant for it. Create the new security and account first, then do the split in the "parent" stock with the assistant. I don't remember off hand whether you can designate a different stock for the new shares; if you can't then just create them in the parent stock and edit the resulting transaction so that the spun-off shares are in the new account.

You should get a letter from the parent company with the new share prices immediately after the spin-off. Go to Tools>Price Editor and create prices for the day of the spin-off reflecting those new share prices. Keep the letter until n years after you sell both stocks (if you ever do) where n is the records retention period required in your tax jurisdiction (7 years in the US).

Regards,
John Ralls
 


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