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A temporary document that represents a portion of a share of stock, often issued after a stock split or spin-off.


1. A private sector substitute for currency. Historically, scrip was used in logging and mining communities dominated by a single company, and employees had to buy goods from the company store. Presently, it is more closely associated with gift certificates, gift cards, and re-loadable debit cards. Militaries also occasionally pay soldiers in scrip when they are on deployment. In Australia, buyout offers including stock in place of or in addition to cash are known as scrip bids. See also: Money.

2. An IOU from a publicly-traded company that is short on cash. Such a company pays dividends in scrip until it resolves its liquidity problems.


A certificate that can be exchanged for a fractional share of stock. Scrip is distributed as the result of a spinoff, a stock dividend, or a stock split in which the stockholder would be entitled to a fractional share of stock. For example, the owner of a single share would receive scrip for one-half a share in the event the issuer declared a three-for-two stock split.


Scrip is a certificate or receipt that represents something of value but has no intrinsic value. What's essential is that the issuer and the recipient must agree on the value that the scrip represents.

For example, in the past, after a corporate stock split or spin-off, a company might issue scrip representing a fractional share of stock for each share you owned. On or before a specific date, you could combine the certificates and convert the value they represented into full shares.

But most companies today make a cash payment for fractional shares based on the closing price of the stock on a specific date.

References in periodicals archive ?
Greet, a "western" candidate, proposed paying the foreign (outside Texas) creditors at the scaled values in 3 percent state bonds or in land scrip (Texas State Gazette, April 15, 1851), the market values of both of which were or would have been considerably below their face values.
Consistent with this discrimination against foreign creditors, Texas paid out two dollars in land scrip to domestic holders of the debt per one dollar of debt, but only one dollar in land scrip to foreign holders of the debt per one dollar in debt (Bicknell's Reporter, April 9, 1850).
He calculated that there were outstanding land scrip notes for 12,900 acres and money scrip for $3081.
Soon afterward, the state set a deadline of the first Monday of September 1851 for holders of the liabilities of the Republic of Texas to exchange them, at their scaled values, for land scrip (Bicknel's Reporter, April 9, 1850).