GOULD STEAMSHIPS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19505, 13 June 1925, Page 11

GOULD STEAMSHIPS

FAILURE OF LARGE FIRM. VICTIM or TRADE DEPRESSION. Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, June 11. A meeting of the creditors of Mr J. C. Gould disclosed that in 1915 he began ■with an investment of £SOO in a shipping company. Later he formed Messrs Gould, Ltd., snip-brokers, and afterwards other concerns, till in 1920 he amalgamated them as the Gould Steamship and Industrials, Ltd., of which he became manager at a salary of £IO,OOO and a percentage of the profits. The company bought out a, Stockton firm for £1,250,000. After the 1922 shipping slump, Mr Gould, in order to meet the decline in business, deposited securities with the banks for the purpose of raising capital. Finally the banks refused advances. He computed that the assets of the company in 1920 were worth £5,000,000, but were now worth _ only £500,000. His own personal liabilities were £440,000. The assets consisted of shares which he could not value as well as arrears in salary. The meeting appointed a trustee.—A. and N.Z. Cable. / Surprise was created in business circles in London early last month W the issue of an order by the Chancery Division for the appointment of a receiver-manager for the great Cardiff concern, the Gould Steamship and Industrials, Ltd. The company’s authorised capital is three million sterling, and half a million sterling debentures have been issued. The application was made with the company’s consent on behalf of the Eagle Star and British Dominions Insurance Company, trustees for the debenture holders. The business is being carried on for the benefit of the shareholders. Mr J. C. Gould, who is an ex-member of the House of Commons, and is the governing director, had a remarkable career. He is the son of a working man. He went to South Africa as an ordinary seaman, but left the ship there and worked as a clerk. He then went to the United States, where he was employed successively as a labourer and an insurance clerk. He studied insurance and became the head of the Largest New York marine reinsurance company. He established, in 1908, a reinsurance firm in London, with branches throughout the Continent. When the war ruined reinsurance he became a shipbroker and shipowner. Through his knowledge of Continental reinsurance ramifications he revealed how Germany was learning from this source about shipping movements; The company was the victim of the world slump and the continued shipping depression.