Who knows what happened but it's for sure that the company was in trouble and was unable to continue without a cash infusion. Stuff like this has to be approved by a court to make sure there are no shenanigans happening. Company officers have to follow the law. They can't just decide that they will cancel stock and reissue new without a valid reason.

BTW, even if they had looked for you and told you about the reissue, it's unlikely you would have done anything. Since you would have needed to put some money in the company to buy the new stock. Sometimes it's possible to exchange old stock for new stock but the company would need some assets. If you got nothing then it means there were no assets left for the common stockholders.

I agree with what others say, stock issued as part of your compensation should be valued at 0 until you can cash out.