COMPANY PROMOTION

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 24, 23 October 1936, Page 10

COMPANY PROMOTION

Investigation Urged By

Committee

DEBENTURE-HOLDERS’ LOSS

A recommendation that the Government should appoint a tribunal to investigate the whole field of investment and company promotion was made by the Public Petitions Committee of the House of Representatives, when reporting to the House yesterday on a petition from W. R. Andrew* and 36 others, praying for an inquiry into the proceedings during the investigation of the affairs of the Investment Executive Trust of New Zealand. Ltd. The committee recommended that the petition be referred to the Government for inquiry. The committee reported that it bad grave doubts whether justice hud been done the petitioning debenture-holders, and recommended that an inquiry be conducted by a competent tribunal appointed by the Government to make a thorough investigation into the whole field of investment and company promotion. The tribunal would report to Parliament on the best means of safeguarding the interests of the investing public and the, Dominion generally.

“This whole matter has been a very unpleasant episode in the history of New Zealand in recent years,” said Mr. C. H. Chapman (Government, Wellington North). The petitioners themselves, he added, had no complaint whatever about the inquiry regarding McArthur, but they did have very serious. complaints about the methods adopted having caused them serious loss. Whatever McArthur did was no reason why innocent debenture-holders should he penalised. Mr. Chapman mentioned the forced sale of the Trust building in Sydney as one of the grounds for complaint. As a result of that sale, he said, the debenture-holders would be lucky if they received 12/6 in the pound, instead of the 19/6 which they could have received if other methods had been adopted. In his opinion the committee had brought in a very wise recommendation Company promotion in all its aspects ought to be inquired into. There had been cases where the public of the Dominion had been fleeced by unscrupulous promoters. The report of the committee was adopted.