PAYING A DEBT

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 135, 4 March 1929, Page 10

PAYING A DEBT

“DRAWING” DEBENTURES

An interesting operation which took place in the Harbbur Board office on Friday “at the hour of 12 noon” was the thirty-sixth half-yearly drawing of debentures of the board’s £850,000 consolidated loan. The proceedings were strictly formal, the five persons present including three officers of the board and a notary public.

The debentures affected numberea 8500 consecutively, less 1815 drawn on previous occasions and the number drawn on Friday was 85 of £lOO each, which are to be redeemed on August 28 by the Sinking Fund Commissioners of the board. The actual number of debentures to be drawn each half-year is arrived at by, actuarial, calculation and increases at more or less regular intervals until the final drawing some years hence will reach over 400 debentures. The sinking fund is calculated to redeem the whole of the £850,000 loan in a certain number of years,and will leave something in hand at the end of that time.

For each drawing a book containing pages perforated into 100 small squares, each bearing the number of a debenture in consecutive order, is used, the whole book representing 8500 debentures of £lOO each numbered 1761 to 10,260 inclusive. Proceedings start--ed on Friday with the checking off of the 85 numbers drawn at the last halfyearly drawing. Each of these had been marked with a diagonal red line and was checked by the numerical register of debentures. The pages containing the numbers affected were then torn up into squares and placed in a revolving ballot-box and well “mixed” by the turning of a handle. On the first occasion five numbers were drawn and the process was then repeated in connection with another section of private debenture-holders, ten being drawn. No account was .taken of any red-marked square, which represented a debenture drawn six months ago. One point of interest was the underlining of numbers such as 6099 or 6609 to avoid possible duplication or wrong reading. The fifteen numbers of the debentures drawn at each ballot were then recorded in the numerical register together with the 70 others being redeemed in sections from the debentures held by large institutions or public bodies. The notary public, who carefully scrutinised the drawing and the checking, signed every, entry in the register and in Addition initalled the first and last number of the sections. There was no thrill in the proceedings such as attends the drawing of an art union or a certain “consultation.” It was a quiet and dignified method of “squaring up” the onehundredth part of a loan of £850,000.