ENGLISH COMPANIES ACT.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 4

ENGLISH COMPANIES ACT.

BALANCE-SHEET RETURNS. MORE DETAILS WANTED. The new Companies Act came into force on November 1, and a number or important changes will be made thereby ir> company practice (says "The Times J. One of the most important of these is the alteration in the form in which balance-sheets must be drawn up. " . 1S now necessary to distinguish between the amounts respectively of the fixed assets and the floating assets; in addition, every balance-sheet must now state how the values of the fixed assets have been arrived at. In the case of holding companies a statement must be appended to the balance-sheet stating _ how the profits and losses of the subsidiary company or companies have been dealt with for the purpose of the holding company s accounts, and to what extent provision has been made for the losses of any subsidiary company in the accounts of that company or of the holding concern, and to what extent the losses of any subsidiary company have been taken into account by the directors of the parent company in arriving' at its profits or losses. . The fact that counsel has expressed the opinion that balance-sheets submitted to shareholders' meetings on or after November 1 must be drawn up in the new form regardless of the date on which they were struck or published, explains the large number of company meetings—nearly 70 —held on the last day before the coming into force of the new Act. Another important provision of the Act is that the familiar "Offer for sale" statement must give the same information as an ordinary prospectus. Moreover, shareholders are now entitled to ,be told the aggregate remuneration of their directors, and the familiar "compensation for loss of office" must now be disclosed.