AN INTERESTING PROSPECTUS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 12, 15 January 1910, Page 15

AN INTERESTING PROSPECTUS.

From London has come an interesting prospectus setting out particulars of a loan of £300,000 at 5 per cent, sought to be raised by the Benedictine monks of Kio de Janeiro. In a statement made by the Abbot of the Benedictines of Brazil (13om Gerardo de Caloen) it is shown that the order was established in Brazil in 1580, and that it now has abbeys at Rio, Sao Paulo, Bahia, Parahyba, and Ccara. The work of the order is principally educational, and at the arch abbey in Eio a free public college with 400 students is maintained. All over the city of Rio de Janeiro, and in its best part, the order has freehold property to the value of more than £600,000, and it is upon this security that the loan is to be raised. Accompanying the prospectus are views of the principal squares and streets in which tho securities are situated. The buildings for the most part are very handsome. One of them is not unlike, "but larger, than the old Parliamentary Buildings of New Zealand. Others are fine offices and shops, closely resembling in size and importance tho buildings from the Bank of New Zealand to the G.P.O. There are 91 buildings

offered as security, the superficial area being 23,650 square metres, of which 16,650 are covered. The revenue produced to the abbey by these properties is £35,350 per annum. In 1908 the city of Rio was practically rebuilt. The investment critic of the Financial Review of Reviews estimates that the loan will yield £5 7s 6d per cent., and adds that there is no instance known to finance where a wealthy religious order occupying a position similar to that of the Benedictines of Rio has failed to meet its obligations.