THE CITY OF GLASGOW BANK LIQUIDATION.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1865, 14 February 1880, Page 3

THE CITY OF GLASGOW BANK LIQUIDATION.

The report by the liquidators of tho City of Glasgow Bank, which will be submitted to a general meeting of shareholders, to be held in Glasgow on the 30th of December, has been issued. The report explains the course of the liquidation during the first year, which closed on the 22nd of October last. Prom the assets of tho Bank there has been realised £4,856,666, and from calls made on contributories £4,452,366 ss, making together £9,309,032 ss. In dividends to creditors, preferable charges, expenses of liquidation, &0., £9,157,670 12s lOd has already been paid or allowed, leaving a balance of receipts of £151,161 12s 2d. Farther, the liquidators estimate the assets of the Bank and tho sums yet to be recovered from contributories at £4,308,935 6s lid, while the debts due by the Bank are £3 840.637 15s 6d, leaving a surplus of £468,297 10s sd. This surplus is, however, subject to payment of interest on claims to O. tober 22nd, estimated at £385,000, and also .he subsequent expenses of liquidation. Thus it is not pro cable that any further call will be necessary. Ths liquidators say the results of the report leave no doubt that their anticipation of full payment is likely to be fulfilled, but they point out that the process of final liquidation—at least after 15s per £1 has been paid—will be tedious. Full information is given in the appendices regarding the state of affairs, the results of the calls on the contributories, the litiga ions entered iuto, and other matters.

Tho following is that portion of the report which specially refers to its affairs in New Zealand :

The Bank now holds in its own name £129,444 preference and £126,444 ordinary stock of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company Limited ; and it is further interested, more or less directly, in £162,945 preferences and £799 658 ordinary stock of that company, the value of which, as a security, or as forming part of the assets of debtors, is an important element in the estimates and valuations above referred to.

The capital of this company consists of £1,000,000 of preference stock, bearing a preferential and cumulative dividend of £4 per cent, and redeemable with £o per cent, bonus, and £1,500,000 ordinary stock. The Bank is directly or indirectly interested, therefore, in about one-half of the whole stock of the company. From tho last report of tho company it appears that the directors recommended that, in order to provide for contingencies affecting the leasehold property of the company, a deduction of £215,000 should le made from the capital as nominally increased in 1877, but with this deduction they believe the assets held by the company to te fully equal to its liabilities, including capital.

The stock of the company is not quoted on the Stock Exchange, and there have been no sales of sufficient importance to afford us any indication of the current price; moreover, we are satisfied that it would be impracticable at present to realise any appreciable quantity of the large amount of stock held by the Bank at any price which could be accepted as a reasonable measure or criterion of its value. In the absence, therefore, of any means of ascertaining the fair price of this stock, we have valued the preference stock at 80 per cent., and the ordinary at 60 per cent. From all the information we have been able to procure, we are satisfied that, if time for favorable realisation be afforded, this value will be realised.

Besides the interest which the Bank thus has in the Hew Zealand and Australian Land Company, it has a direct interest (to the extent of about £120,000) in certain properties in New Zealand and in Now South Wales, which the directors had recently acquired for the Bank. We are not yet in complete possession of these estates ; but in our estimates we have taken their value at the sum which was put upon them some months ago by competent valuers, and we have reason to believe that valuations made now would be in excess of those on which we have proceeded.