MISSING DEBENTURES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25796, 17 March 1945, Page 6

MISSING DEBENTURES

RECOVERY REPORTED KEPT FROM ENEMY HANDS (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, Mar. 16. Christchurch Drainage Board debentures for £50,000, which are believed to have been at a bank at Bordeaux when the French city was occupied by the Germans in 1940, have been recovered. This information has been received by Mrs R. A. Hollis, of Christchurch, who is a beneficiary of the trust holding the debentures. With the debentures have been recovered interest coupons which have not been cashed for the last five years and are worth well over £ 10,000. Mrs Hollis is one of three beneficiaries, the others being her mother, Lady Cox, of Sydney, and a cousin in Europe. The debentures were bought by her father, the late Sir Owen Cox, under an agreement that the interest should be paid in Sydney. Two years ago the New Zealand Treasury asked the Drainage Board to cease sending the interest payments to Sydney, where they were accumulating while waiting for the presentation of the interest coupons, but the board considered that it was bound by its arrangement with Sir o\yen Cox. There was then more than' £BOOO awaiting collection. The fact that the coupons had not been presented suggested either that the debentures had been destroyed or that the Germans had failed to find them, as it. was considered that it would be possible for them to be negotiated through neutral channels. Mrs Hollis has no idea of where the debentures were recovered, nor of how they had been kept out of enemy hands. She has simply had advice from the trustees that they are now in a position to resume negotiating the interest coupons and to make payments to the beneficiaries.