[GNC] How to record a stock spinoff?

[Kalpesh Patel]

John – thank you for that elaborate explanation. It is quite welcome.

 

A complete background on these securities: I received 69 MET securities in April of 2000 when MetLife demutualized; cost basis I used was $14.25/share. I have held on them since then. And then of course they spun off BHF in Aug 2017. Pic1 is what I did to show the receipt of it (not sure if it would be considered purchase or not; I didn’t pay anything but it does probably has basis). Somehow 2nd and 3rd transaction are not in ordered correctly in the Pic1. What I was trying to keep is as follows:

 

4/7/2000 – got 69 shares of MET at 14.25 for total of $983.25

8/7/2017 – sold those 69 shares at reduced price to account for the split ratio

8/7/2017 – bought back the same amount of share to bring back cost basis to be the original to carry forward the cost basis into future

 

I think this is not likely correct in tracking the current gains when generating the report.

 

I did read that ABC News article on how to account for split using end-of-day closing pricing for it (can I use the opening pricing here?) but I think I was also worried that since I did not “sell” them, I want to carry forward the cost basis, and thus the gains as a result of it.

 

Anyways I think it going to be my kids problems as I don’t plan to sell them and pass it on 😊.

 

 

 

From: John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> 
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2026 6:57 PM
To: Kalpesh Patel <kalpesh.patel at usa.net>
Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: [GNC] How to record a stock spinoff?

 

 





On Feb 13, 2026, at 14:52, Kalpesh Patel <kalpesh.patel at usa.net <mailto:kalpesh.patel at usa.net> > wrote:

 

Attached is how I entered spinoff of BHF from MET in 2017, which I don’t think is right as all cost basis listed are not correct …

 

You’ve also recorded fractional BHF shares instead of the cash-in-lieu you got.

 

Applying the ABC News columnist’s closing price method, on July 18 2017 BHF closed at $70.00 and MET at 49.32; you got a share of BHF for every 11 MET you owned, so the aggregate is 11 * 49.32 + 70 = 612.52. 70.00 / 612.52 = 0.114 so that’s the portion of your basis in MET that transferred to BHF, and your basis in MET is reduced by the same amount.

 

If the original basis in MET was $14.25/share then the new basis is .886 * 14.25 = 12.626 and the basis in BHT is .114 * 14.25 * 11 = 17.87.

 

107.22 + 18.39 - 112.09 = 

Supposing that you got $70/share for the .2627 shares of BHT your capital gain was (70.00 - 17.87) * .2627 = 13.70. 

 

You could record all of that in GnuCash with 

 

Spin off BHF 6.2727 shares               Assets:Broker:BHF          6       17.87        107.22

Reduction in Basis                             Assets:Broker:MET                                                       112.09

Cash-in-lieu on .2727 shares             Assets:Broker:Cash                                      18.39

                                                           Income:CapGain                                                             13.52

 

It didn’t quite add up right — there’s an 18-cent difference that I took out of the cap gain split to get it to balance.

 

Regards,

John Ralls

 

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