ONE OF THE "DAVIES" GROUP.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8583, 9 September 1893, Page 7

ONE OF THE "DAVIES" GROUP.

Melbourne, September 2. The affairs of another of the famous Davies group of Companies came before the Public Attorney, when the liquidators called the shareholders and depositors together to make their first report. The Company is the Colonial Investment and Agency Company. Mr Dalerston, who was a large depositor, is one of the liquidators, and presented the report. He could only five the creditors a nope of a Is 6d diviend in all, and had to apologise for the delay in paying a first dividend of 6d by the fact that the Bank in which the liquidators kept the Company's accounts was oue of those which had suspended. They actually paid in £1500 only twenty minutes before it closed its doors. He had also to explain to the creditors that, in accordance with the system which prevailed throughout the Davies group of Companies, the Colonial Investment and Agency Company held shares inseveralof the other companies; these had all suspended, and were calling up the unpaid capital. The result was that their Company had to pay np over £19,000 for calls to the Mercantile Bank alone ; over £4000 to another Company, and so forth. As he expressed it, it looked like all the Companies preying on each other, even in liquidation. He then went on to explain a matter which conveyed a serious allegation ou the directors. He did so as follows: In 1889, after nearly all the titles this Company possessed had been handed to the Bank, they gave a general lieu to the Bank over everything that was and is and is to come np, for which they got the Bank to renew and discount their own promissory notes. I imagine this to be virtually au act of insolvency, and yet in 1891 they published a balance sheet to the end of April on that year, showing a reserve fund of £130,000 and also declared and paid a dividend of 12£ per cent, on the strength of that balance sheet. Where did that money come from ? We deposited and redeposited our money under the impression that it was safe. I, myself, with £1000 already there put in in 1890 another £2000, thinking it perfectly safe with such a splendid balance-sheet. So it was !—safe never to get again. Now this general lieu given to the B»uk has the seal of the Company attached, and is signed by one of the Directors and the Manager, and yet there was not one line in the minutes about it, either authorising or in any way acknowledging it to have been done. Neither can we find any trace in any of the other books of the Company about it. Naturally there were questions by the shareholders as to whether criminal proceedings were not to be taken out? Mr Dalerston explained that the liquidators intended to take the course of placing the matter before the Supreme Court on affidavit. Mr Dalerston further stated that the profits for 1891 were stated in the balance sheet. to amount to £50,000, the real fact being that the Company's earnings had only amounted to £61 12s' 6d during that year. At the meeting held to discuss that balancesheet Sir Matthew Davies stated that he held 10,000 shares in the concern, which he would not sell at 23s each. Several shareholders declared they would like to spend their Is 6d dividend in prosecuting somebody.