I also 'inherited' AMP shares after the demutualisation but I...

I also 'inherited' AMP shares after the demutualisation but I never thought of them as being for 'free', rather just a bit of the profit that AMP didn't pay me for the very long period I held a so-called 'personal superannuation plan' with them.

When AMP demutualised, the indicative value of the shares was $11.40 (this was the base price against which you had to pay CGT). As AMP became a large part of the ASX, all the fund managers needed to hold AMP to keep their index in balance. This drove the share price up quite dramatically. The highest price was around $22 just after demutualisation and was apparently a mistake by some poor stockbroker who got carried away with the momentum of having to own AMP.

The worst mistake AMP made was to buy the Henderson Group. They didn't do sufficient due dilligence and got severely burned(as did us poor shareholders). Mind you, the CEO of the time walked away with a very handsome profit.

Since then AMP has been a languishing dragon just waiting to prove itself again. AXA appears to be a good acquisition for them (from memory it used to be NML until it was taken over by AXA). Let's hope that this time they have got it right and the SP goes to something resembling the true value of AMP and the board start rewarding share holders with a good dividend.