How to Convert Abbott India Share Certificates to Demat and Recover Them from IEPF

To convert an old Abbott India share certificate to demat, open a demat account in exactly the name printed on it, update your KYC with the registrar (KFin Technologies), and hand the certificate to your broker or bank with a demat request form. If the shares have already moved to the IEPF, you claim them back with Form IEPF-5. Either way, the shares end up in your demat account.

Before you start, check one thing. The number printed on an old Abbott India certificate is almost never what you own today. Many older certificates do not even say “Abbott”. They say Boots or Knoll Pharmaceuticals, the names this company had before 2002.

Two bonus issues since 1987 mean that 100 shares held since the mid-1980s are 400 shares today, worth about ₹1.08 crore at about ₹26,980 a share (24 September 2026). Older holdings have grown even more.

This guide covers every situation we see with Abbott India shares: converting them to demat, claiming from the IEPF, lost certificates, duplicates, names that do not match, joint holders, and shares of a holder who has died. If you would rather we checked your certificate for you, start with Find Your Shares.

My certificate says Boots or Knoll. Is it Abbott India?

Yes. Boots and Knoll Pharmaceuticals certificates are Abbott India certificates. The company changed its name, not its shares. It has been the same listed company since 1944. Only the name on the front of the certificate changed over the years:

You do not need to exchange an old Boots or Knoll certificate for a new “Abbott” one before converting it to demat. The registrar knows the folio under the old name.

What about a Solvay Pharma India certificate?

Solvay Pharma India merged into Abbott India in 2011, and every 2 Solvay shares became 3 Abbott India shares. The two boards approved the merger on 24 November 2010, and the new Abbott shares were allotted on 7 September 2011. So 100 Solvay Pharma India shares are 150 Abbott India shares today, worth about ₹40.5 lakh.

A Solvay certificate is now just a record. The Abbott shares issued in its place were sent separately. If they never reached the family, they will be sitting with the company or, after seven years of unclaimed dividends, in the IEPF.

Two certificates that are not Abbott India

• Duphar-Interfran. Solvay Pharma India came out of Duphar-Interfran in 2001. But Duphar-Interfran itself is a different company, known today as Fermenta Biotech. A Duphar-Interfran certificate is not an Abbott India certificate. But a family that held Duphar-Interfran in 2001 may also have been given Solvay Pharma shares when the business was split, and those would now be Abbott India shares. That needs a folio-by-folio check.
• Abbott Laboratories (USA). Shares of the American parent company, usually from employee share plans, are held in the US. They are not Abbott India shares and the Indian IEPF does not hold them.

How many Abbott India shares does an old certificate become today?

Anywhere from the same number to about eight and a half times as many. It depends on when the shares were first held in your family’s name. Abbott India (under its Boots and Knoll names) gave shareholders free bonus shares in 1979, 1984, 1987–88 and 1998. Each bonus went only to holdings already on the register at that time.

Find the row that matches your certificate. The numbers are for every 100 shares printed on it.

*At Abbott India’s price of about ₹26,980 a share on 24 September 2026. Values move with the market. **Bonus shares are only issued in whole numbers, so the 1979 and 1984 bonuses left small fractions, which were paid out in cash. Holdings from before 1976 received earlier bonuses too, and a holding registered during 1987–88 depends on the exact bonus record date. Both need checking against the company’s register, folio by folio.

Here is how 100 shares held in 1985 grow, one step at a time:

The bonus shares came on separate certificates. Many families have only the original certificate and assume that is everything. The bonus certificates may have been lost in a house move. Or they may never have been delivered. Undelivered certificates are moved into the company’s unclaimed suspense account, and after seven years of unclaimed dividends they move to the IEPF. So one folio can be spread across three places: the certificate in your cupboard, the suspense account, and the IEPF.

What matters is when the shares were registered in your family’s name, not only the date printed on the front. If your father bought the shares in the market, the transfer is usually stamped on the back of the certificate with a date. That date decides which row you are in.

Every number here comes from the company’s own records, its filings with the stock exchanges, and NSE records. Don’t want to work it out yourself? Send us the folio and we will trace the complete holding.

How do you convert Abbott India share certificates to demat?

Through a demat account in the same name as the certificate. Your broker or bank sends the certificate to KFin Technologies, Abbott India’s registrar, and KFin credits the shares electronically. Since 1 April 2019, physical shares cannot be sold or transferred until they are in demat. So this step comes before anything else you want to do with them.

1. Open a demat account in exactly the name on the certificate. If the certificate says “Ramesh K. Sharma”, the account must be able to match that. If the names differ, fix that first (see name mismatch below).
2. Update your KYC with KFin Technologies. For physical shares SEBI requires PAN, address, mobile, email, bank details and a specimen signature on the folio. You do this with Form ISR-1, plus ISR-2 (your bank confirms your signature) if the signature on record is old or different. Until the KYC is complete, the registrar will not process the demat request.
3. Fill a Demat Request Form (DRF) at your broker or bank (your “depository participant”). Write “Surrendered for Dematerialisation” on each certificate and sign it as it was signed on the register.
4. Your broker sends the DRF and certificates to KFin. KFin checks the signature, the folio and the distinctive numbers against Abbott India’s register.
5. The shares appear in your demat account, usually within a few weeks if the papers are clean.

Where people get stuck: signatures that no longer match after 30 or 40 years, a name spelt differently on the PAN card, a joint holder who has died, and bonus certificates that never reached the family. Each of these is covered below. For the fees involved, see what it costs to convert physical shares to demat, or read about our physical shares to demat service.

Is there a deadline? Not for shares already registered in your own name. You can demat them at any time. But while they sit on paper, you cannot sell them, and unclaimed dividends are quietly pushing them towards the IEPF. Read more about the demat “last date”.

How do you check if your Abbott India shares have gone to the IEPF?

If no dividend on your folio has been cashed for seven years in a row, the shares have very likely been moved to the IEPF. The IEPF is the Investor Education and Protection Fund, a government fund that holds unclaimed shares and dividends until the owner claims them back. Abbott India pays a large dividend every year, so an uncashed dividend on an old folio is a clear warning sign.

There are three ways to check:

• Abbott India’s own IEPF page lists shares already transferred, with a search that runs through KFin Technologies. Abbott India IEPF page.
• The IEPF Authority’s search at iepfa.gov.in lets you search by company and holder name. How to search the IEPF step by step.
• Search every old spelling and every old name. A folio opened in 1980 will be under “Boots”, with the holder’s name spelt the way it was written then, often with just initials.

If you find nothing, the shares may still be with the company, which is better news: you can demat them directly without an IEPF claim. We can run the search for you.

How do you recover Abbott India shares from the IEPF?

You file Form IEPF-5 online on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs website, then send the signed papers to Abbott India’s Nodal Officer, who verifies them and reports to the IEPF Authority. The Authority then releases the shares, and any dividends it holds, to your demat account. Shares are only ever released into a demat account, never as a paper certificate.

1. Open a demat account in the name of the claimant. For a joint holding, it must be in the same names and the same order.
2. Complete KYC with KFin Technologies and ask for an entitlement letter. This letter states how many shares and how much dividend on your folio went to the IEPF. Since October 2025 it is a mandatory part of every IEPF-5 claim.
3. File Form IEPF-5 on the MCA portal. Note the SRN it gives you; that is your claim number. How to file IEPF-5 online.
4. Send the physical documents to the company’s Nodal Officer at Abbott India’s registered office, in an envelope marked “Claim for refund from IEPF Authority”. These are: the signed IEPF-5 printout and acknowledgement, an indemnity bond on stamp paper, an advance stamped receipt, PAN, Aadhaar, a cancelled cheque, your client master list, the entitlement letter and the original certificate if you still have it.
5. The company verifies and reports to the IEPF Authority. The rules give the company 15 days to send its verification report and the Authority 60 days to decide. That is 75 days on paper. Real claims usually take far longer, because documents go back and forth. What to do when an IEPF claim is stuck.

Claim the full folio in one go. If the original shares and the bonus shares went to the IEPF in different years, one claim should cover everything on the folio. Claim for only the number printed on your certificate, and you will be back in the queue for the rest.

What if the Abbott India share certificates are lost?

It depends on where the shares are now. If they are still with the company, you need a duplicate certificate. If they have gone to the IEPF, you usually do not.

• Shares still with Abbott India: the company must first cancel the lost certificate and issue duplicate shares, which are credited straight into your demat account. This is the process in the next section.
• Shares already in the IEPF: when shares move to the IEPF, the original paper certificates are cancelled automatically. There is nothing left to duplicate. You claim with IEPF-5 and the entitlement letter from KFin, which is based on the company’s register, not on the paper in your hand. Families often spend months getting a duplicate they never needed.

Don’t know the folio number? Old dividend warrants, bank passbooks showing dividend credits, letters from Boots or Knoll, even a wealth-tax return can give it. With the holder’s name and an old address, the registrar can usually trace the folio. Our lost shares recovery service starts from exactly this point.

How do you get a duplicate Abbott India share certificate?

Apply to KFin Technologies with Form ISR-4 and the documents SEBI sets for the value of your holding. The duplicate shares are then credited straight into your demat account. SEBI simplified these rules in December 2025. It no longer issues duplicates on paper at all.

What you need depends on what the lost shares are worth today:

• Up to ₹10,000: a simple undertaking on plain paper.
• ₹10,000 to ₹10 lakh: one standard affidavit-cum-indemnity bond.
• Above ₹10 lakh: the affidavit-cum-indemnity bond, plus a police report (FIR, e-FIR or police complaint) that mentions the folio, certificate numbers and distinctive numbers, plus a notice of the loss in a widely read newspaper.

With Abbott India, that top band arrives fast. At about ₹26,980 a share, ₹10 lakh is only about 37 shares. A family holding 400 shares from the Boots days is well above it and needs the full process.

1. Open a demat account first, in the same name (or names) as the folio. Since 2 April 2026 the registrar credits duplicate shares directly into your demat account. There is no longer a “Letter of Confirmation” to carry to your broker, so the account has to exist before you apply.
2. Update KYC on the folio with Form ISR-1, and ISR-2 if your signature has changed.
3. Get the police report and newspaper notice if the holding is above ₹10 lakh. KFin can give you the certificate numbers if you do not have them.
4. Submit Form ISR-4 to KFin with the affidavit-cum-indemnity bond, the police report and notice if needed, and your demat account details.
5. The shares are credited to your demat account once KFin completes its checks. SEBI expects this in about 30 days for a complete, correct application.

The value is worked out on the market price, not the face value printed on the certificate. Every bonus share on the folio counts, so a holding that “looks” small can be well over the line. The trap many families fall into is signature mismatch; here is how to handle it. The full process is in our guide to reporting a lost share certificate.

What if the name or spelling on the certificate does not match?

Fix the name on the folio first, before you demat or file an IEPF claim, using Form ISR-1 and a document that proves both spellings belong to you. The registrar, the demat account and the IEPF claim all have to show the same name. One letter out of place is enough to get a request returned.

This is very common with Abbott India because the oldest folios go back to the Boots era. Typical cases:

• Initials on the certificate, full name on the PAN card: “R. K. Sharma” against “Ramesh Kumar Sharma”.
• A woman’s maiden name on the certificate and her married name on everything else.
• Spelling changes over time: “Mohd.” and “Mohammed”, “Laxmi” and “Lakshmi”, a dropped middle name.
• Titles and suffixes like “Smt.”, “Dr.” or “HUF” in one place and not the other.

The usual proof is a passport, a marriage certificate, a gazette notification, or a notarised affidavit that both names are the same person. Send it with Form ISR-1 to KFin. Once the folio matches your PAN, the demat and the IEPF claim can go through.

Don’t open the demat account in the “new” name and hope it works. The registrar will reject the demat request, and the certificates come back weeks later. Getting the order right the first time saves months.

How do joint holders convert or claim Abbott India shares?

The demat account must be in the same names and in the same order as on the certificate, and every living holder must sign. A certificate in the names of “A, B and C” can only be converted into a demat account held by A, B and C, in that order.

• Everyone alive and available: open a joint demat account matching the certificate, complete KYC for every holder, and all of them sign the demat request.
• The names are in the wrong order for the demat account you want to use: ask KFin to change the order (“transposition”) with Form ISR-4 before you demat.
• One joint holder has died: the surviving holders get the shares simply by having the deceased holder’s name deleted. You need a copy of the death certificate and the survivors’ KYC. No succession certificate, will or probate is needed for this.
• Every holder has died: this becomes a transmission to the legal heirs of the last surviving holder (next section).

For an IEPF claim on a joint folio, the IEPF-5 and the demat account follow the same rule: same names, same order. If one holder has died, delete their name through KFin before you file. A claim filed on a folio that still shows a deceased holder will be sent back.

What if the Abbott India shareholder has died?

The shares pass to the nominee or legal heirs through transmission, handled by KFin Technologies, and they are always credited in demat. If the shares have also gone to the IEPF, transmission and the IEPF claim happen together, and the heir files the IEPF-5 as the claimant.

SEBI’s new transmission rules have applied since 22 August 2026. They make this easier than it was:

• Simplified documents for physical shares worth up to ₹10 lakh per company, doubled from ₹5 lakh.
• Quick processing for physical holdings up to ₹10,000 where the claimant is a parent, spouse, child or parent-in-law.
• No blanket requirement for probate, and one combined affidavit-cum-NOC in place of separate papers. You still have to prove your entitlement if other heirs dispute it.
• 21 days for the registrar to process once all documents are in.

With Abbott India, the value limits matter. At about ₹26,980 a share, ₹10 lakh is only about 37 shares. Most old Abbott holdings are above it. That usually means a succession certificate or legal heir certificate, unless there is a nominee or the other heirs give no-objection. Read the full picture in our guides to transmission of shares and transmission without a succession certificate.

Why not just hand the certificate to a local lawyer or agent?

Because a claim is only as good as the holding traced behind it, and with Abbott India the number on the paper can be a quarter, or less, of the truth.

Take a family with a 1985 Boots certificate for 100 shares. A generalist reads “100”, files for 100, and recovers about ₹27 lakh. The folio actually holds 400 shares, about ₹1.08 crore. The other 300 are on bonus certificates nobody found, possibly in the suspense account, possibly in the IEPF. Unless someone traces them first, they are never claimed. The family ends up back in the queue years later, if it ever finds out.

We work the other way round. We trace the complete holding first: every old name, every bonus, every folio, every IEPF transfer. Then a vetted local partner handles the paperwork where you live (affidavits, police report, newspaper notice, succession papers) on the full holding, the first time.

There is also the question of who is paid for what. A lawyer or agent is paid whether or not your shares ever arrive. We are not. Zero advance — you pay only once the shares are credited to your demat account. So we only get paid if the whole chain works.

And the IEPF claim itself is decided in Delhi, where the IEPF Authority sits. Our team is in Delhi, so we can follow your file up in person, not by letter from another city. When it comes to an IEPF claim, what matters is who is closest to the office that holds your file.

The document is only the start. After it come the KYC, the entitlement letter, the verification, the demat credit, and a transmission if the holder has died. Anyone can get you a piece of paper. We get you the shares. See how our IEPF claim service works.

Dates you should know about

5 October 2027 is Abbott India’s next IEPF deadline. It is the last date to claim the unclaimed dividend for 2019–20. Shares whose dividends have gone unclaimed for seven years in a row from 2019–20 are then due to move to the IEPF. Cashing any one dividend before that keeps the shares with the company.

4 February 2027 is when SEBI’s special window for old physical transfers closes. It covers transfer deeds signed before 1 April 2019 that were rejected, returned or never processed. One example: Abbott, Boots or Knoll shares bought on paper and never registered in the buyer’s name. Shares already moved to the IEPF are not covered. The full rules of the window.

Holding other old blue-chip certificates too? Here is how to recover Cipla shares from the IEPF. Holding old ABB or Hindustan Brown Boveri certificates? Every ABB shareholder in 2019 was also given Hitachi Energy shares.

Not sure what your Abbott, Boots or Knoll certificate is worth? Start with Find Your Shares →

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I convert Abbott India physical share certificates to demat?
Open a demat account in exactly the name on the certificate, update your KYC with KFin Technologies (Abbott India’s registrar) using Form ISR-1, then give the certificates to your broker or bank with a Demat Request Form. They send it to KFin, which checks the folio and signature and credits the shares to your demat account, usually within a few weeks if the papers are in order.

Are Boots and Knoll Pharmaceuticals share certificates the same as Abbott India?
Yes. Abbott India was called Boots Pure Drug Company (India), then The Boots Company (India) from 1971, Boots Pharmaceuticals from 1991 and Knoll Pharmaceuticals from 1995, before becoming Abbott India in July 2002. It is the same listed company, so a certificate in any of those names is an Abbott India certificate and can be converted to demat without exchanging it first.

How many Abbott India shares do 100 old shares become today?
It depends on when the shares were first held in your name. 100 shares held between 1984 and 1987 are 400 shares today, because of 1-for-1 bonus issues in 1987–88 and 1998. 100 shares held between 1979 and 1984 are 640 shares, and 100 shares held before 1979 are about 848. At about ₹26,980 a share (24 September 2026), 400 shares are worth about ₹1.08 crore.

What happened to Solvay Pharma India shares?
Solvay Pharma India merged into Abbott India in 2011. Every 2 Solvay Pharma India shares became 3 Abbott India shares, and the new shares were allotted on 7 September 2011. So 100 Solvay shares are 150 Abbott India shares today.

Has Abbott India ever split its shares?
No. Abbott India has never split its shares. The face value is still ₹10 a share. All of the growth in an old holding comes from bonus issues.

Who is the registrar for Abbott India shares?
KFin Technologies Limited is Abbott India’s registrar and share transfer agent. Demat requests, KYC updates, duplicate certificates, transmission and IEPF entitlement letters for Abbott India shares all go through KFin.

How do I claim Abbott India shares from the IEPF?
Open a demat account, complete KYC with KFin Technologies and get an entitlement letter, then file Form IEPF-5 on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs website. Send the signed form, an indemnity bond, an advance receipt, your ID, a cancelled cheque, the client master list and the entitlement letter to Abbott India’s Nodal Officer at its registered office. The company verifies the claim and the IEPF Authority releases the shares to your demat account.

How long does an Abbott India IEPF claim take?
The rules allow the company 15 days to send its verification report and the IEPF Authority 60 days to decide, so about 75 days on paper. In practice claims often take much longer, usually because documents go back and forth between the claimant, the company and the Authority.

I have lost my Abbott India share certificates. What do I do?
If the shares are still with the company, open a demat account, then apply to KFin Technologies for duplicate shares with Form ISR-4. Up to ₹10 lakh you need only a standard affidavit-cum-indemnity bond (a plain-paper undertaking up to ₹10,000). Above ₹10 lakh, which is only about 37 Abbott India shares at today’s price, you also need a police report and a newspaper notice. The duplicate shares are credited straight into your demat account. If the shares have already gone to the IEPF, the old certificates were cancelled at that point and you claim with Form IEPF-5 instead, with no duplicate needed.

The name on my Abbott India certificate is spelt differently from my PAN. What should I do?
Correct the name on the folio first. Send Form ISR-1 to KFin Technologies with a document proving both names are yours, such as a passport, marriage certificate, gazette notification or notarised affidavit. The folio, the demat account and any IEPF claim must all show the same name, or the request will be returned.

How do joint holders demat Abbott India shares?
The demat account must be in the same names and the same order as the certificate, and every living holder must complete KYC and sign. If one joint holder has died, the survivors have the deceased holder’s name deleted with a copy of the death certificate. No succession certificate is needed for that.

What is the next Abbott India IEPF deadline?
5 October 2027. That is the last date to claim the unclaimed dividend for 2019–20. Shares whose dividends have gone unclaimed for seven consecutive years from 2019–20 are then due to move to the IEPF.

Do I have to pay SharesRecover anything upfront?
No. Zero advance — you pay only once the shares are credited to your demat account.