BOTTOMLEY FUNDS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5145, 29 June 1927, Page 3

BOTTOMLEY FUNDS.

WINDFALL FOB LOSEBB.

ABOUT 4s IN £l.

Good news for debepture-holders in an old company floated by Horatio Bottomley and now in liquidation was. revealed during proceedings before Mr Justice Eve in the Chancery Division of the Law Courts. The information relates to an impending dividend to be paid .from funds connected with a concern known as the Selected Gold Mines of Australia. This company was formed with a share capital of £60,000 in March, 1904. It seems that, by a Court judgment, an attempt to set aside mortgages held over the Joint Stock Trust and Finance Company, another Botttomley flotaion, by the Selected Gold Mines was-overruled, but this decision was valueless until 1918, when, after, his Victory Bond Club flotation, Bottomley was able to obtain the annulment of his bankruptcy, Before he could obtain the annulment he had tp settle with the liquidators of the Joint Stock Trust, and actually paid them £25,000. which almost certainly'can be traced to his Victory Bond Club profits. Now, after a lapse of another nine years and much litigation, the debenture-holders of the Selected Gold Mines, or their surj/lvors, will get a fraction of their ' money back. Shareholders in theJoint Stock Trust, which had a share capital of £500,0'00. will get nothing. Mr Justice Eve was asked to deal with applications respectipg the Joint Stock Trust and the Selected Gold Mines.

He was then- informed by Mr Galbraith, K.C., for applicants, that a fund of £27,000 had been got in from Bottomley as the result of a compromise of certain proceedings brought against him, and the question was how that sum was to be distributed after payment of the costs incurred. The debenture-holders of tne Selected Gold Mines Company would get a dividend of about 4s in the £l. The debentures amounted to £127,780, of which £69,640 were held by persons who had not produced their debentures, and it was hoped they would come to hear of this nest-egg which was available for them. The money would be available for distribution in about three or four weeks. Mr Justice Eve : That is very satisfactory, having regard to what the horizon looked like at one time. .In making the order for distribution His Lordship remarked that he thought those who succeeded in getting money for the debenture-holders were entitled to be indemnified for the costs they had incurred.