The History of StockTrans - Part Two

The most interesting aspect of the stock transfer business is the interaction with the whole world’s businesses. There is no kind of business in the world that does not have one of its players in the public company arena. And that means, of course, that StockTrans, Inc. has, or has had, stock transfer clients in every field of enterprise.

Perhaps the greatest educational element in our long 35 year history as a stock transfer agent has been what we have learned from the huge variety of our transfer agent clients. From companies that froze prize dogs ‘ -ahem- seminal fluids for future use in breeding, to the first company to sell CD’s over the internet, to french fry vending machine dreamers, to gambling in casinos from the sky, to bio-pharma companies working on new drugs for every illness you have ever heard of and many you haven’t, to national retail chains, to cruise lines, to the pre-cursor to AARP, to the first online traffic website, to the offspring of Gallup polling, to banks, investment companies, REITS, to nanotechnology, to cosmetics, to weight loss programs, to….well you get the picture.

What a great country! Almost everyone wants to be public! And anyone can get a chance. And they are all interesting companies in their own way, run by interesting people who need and deserve excellent stock transfer services at a fair price. Which of course, is where StockTrans, Inc. comes in?

But, let's go back to the late 70’s, when we were young. As I mentioned before, when I started working for the investment bankers, we were doing the stock transferring for the public companies we controlled or had significant interests in. Around 1974 or 1975, it occurred to me that there were a lot more micro and small to mid-cap companies out there than there were New York Stock Exchange companies. Yet the majority of these smaller companies were being handled by the giant bank transfer agents, and, most of the time, paying the same prices as the larger companies. But, and this is a big but, (sorry all you gangsta rappers but we aren’t talking about the same thing) they were getting service like, well, like they were at the bottom of the heap. So, I decided to try to get some stock transfer clients that weren’t part of our “captive” companies. I mean, if you are paying big bucks and getting lousy stock transfer service, why wouldn’t you be interested in someone who would reverse that situation for you. Simple, basic transferrian logic, right? Well…not so fast…