[SMHarman]

O2 got fed up with the costs of dealing with their small shareholders (you) as something silly like 95% of the members held 100 shares makeing up less than 4% of the share ownership. Dividend cheques cost more to print and send than their value, the register was expensive to maintain etc.

So they petitioned that it would be in the best interests of the company to liquidate these shares through a buyback. At the same time decided to do a tidy up of the ownerhship structure and also rename the listed company O2. This was all approved by the courts, shareholders etc and is above board.

You had to positivly agree to keep the shares if you wanted to - financial advisors think that this is the best course of action as mobile phone networks are a good long term investment.

Did you keep the registrar up to date on your address? It would seem so if you got the cheque. Did you really not get the documents? Did they come attached to teh financial statements and you just chose to bin them?

Talk to the registrar. You may be able to get the decision unwound, but I doubt it. If you really want them, you can buy them back with the cheque you have just recieved at less than they bought them from you and make a few p profit.