Stock-purchasing business lets you to buy just 1 share

Your child is sitting on $100 in holiday gift money and you're looking for a place to stash it.

Somehow the idea of parking it in a savings account earning 2 cents a month in interest seems like cruel and unusual punishment.

Rick and Leslie Roman think they have a better alternative.

The Romans, of Portland, Ore., own a home-based business called GiveAShare.com, which sells one share of stock in a company along with an artistically colorful gift -- a framed, authentic stock certificate. The certificate is the hook, a great way to grab your kids' attention about investing and the stock market.

And, depending on the stock, the purchase won't cost a whole lot of money, either.

Since starting in 2002, the Romans said, the majority of the purchases have come from parents and grandparents as birthday or holiday gifts for the kids. Among the most coveted shares are companies that kids can relate to, such as Walt Disney Co., Starbucks, McDonald's, Apple Computer and Microsoft.

GiveAShare is one of a handful of players that sell single shares with stock certificates. At least three other companies -- OneShare.com, Single Share.com and Frame-A-Stock.com -- offer similar services.

Leslie Roman said the idea for their business was planted about 20 years ago when they were trying to buy single shares of stock as a gift for nephews. "We discovered how difficult it was to do," she said. "Brokers didn't really want to sell just one share."

After Rick Roman left his financial job at Motorola about four years ago, the husband-and-wife team acted on their early business instincts, created their stock purchase program and set up shop on the Internet (www.giveashare.com; 1-866-291-9918).

GiveAShare is not a brokerage firm, and the owners don't provide investment advice.

Companies like GiveAShare must abide by Securities and Exchange Commission rules on marketing and pricing. That's why the Romans' one-share certificates are marketed as a gift or collectible, not as an investment.

The company offers shares and certificates in more than 70 big-name companies, though you can special-order practically any share listed on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq. There's no brokerage account to set up, purchases can be made with a credit card, and the entire transaction can be completed in minutes.

Here's how the program works: Customers are charged the market price for the stock on the day of purchase, plus a service and gift fee for acquiring and registering the shares and assembling the framed and matted stock certificate with a personalized engraved plate. That fee, following SEC rules, normally runs $37.

With stocks trading above $37 a share, the company is required by the SEC to charge at least twice the market price to avoid undercutting brokerage firms. So if you have an intense desire to own a single share of Google, you'll need to shell out twice the recent $466 market price, or $932.