Railroads -- United States; Railroads -- United States -- Finance
be funded at the existing rate of interest on the second consolidated
and convertible bonds, _i. e._ 7 per cent, so that the reduction in
interest was compensated for by the greater volume of securities given;
and both classes of these coupon bonds were to bear lower interest at
first than that to which they would ultimately attain. The assessment
proposed in 1875 was retained in 1876, except that stockholders were
given the choice of paying $6 on common and $3 on preferred stock and
obtaining therefor income bonds, or of paying $4 on common and $2
on preferred and receiving nothing but new stock, dollar for dollar
for their old.[110] One-half of the shares of the new company (after
foreclosure) were to be issued in the name of one or more sets of
trustees, who were to hold them to vote on until a dividend had been
paid on the preferred stock for three consecutive years. Provision was
made for an issue of $2,500,000 in prior lien bonds, to take precedence
of the remainder of the second consols, the proceeds to be applied
to capital requirements. Voting power was conferred on the first and
second consols, funded income bonds, prior lien bonds, and income
bonds, in all about $57,000,000; one vote to every $100 of bonds.[111]
The property of the company was to be foreclosed by or under the
direction of certain reconstruction trustees, for the choice of whom
careful provisions were inserted.
Divested of all complications, what this reorganization plan proposed
for the salvation of the property was the funding of the coupons on
four classes of bonds from 1875 to 1879; the reduction of the interest
to be paid on $25,000,000 second consolidated and convertible 7s one
per cent per share; and the raising of a certain amount of cash by
assessment upon the stockholders; while it dropped the one point of the
earlier plan which might have given a key to the solution of the whole
problem, viz. the exchange of mortgage and income bonds for the old
second consolidated in the ratios respectively of 60 per cent and of 40
per cent. When we remember the desperate straits to which the company
had been reduced, the permanent relief seems slight enough; and given
the fact, which proved but too true, that the net earnings were to fall
off until the road was little more than able to meet the alternate
coupons which it was obliged to pay in cash, it appears to have been
nothing at all. If we suppose no changes to have occurred in capital
account between 1878 and 1883 save those provided for in the plan of
reorganization itself, a comparison of the two periods would have stood
as follows:
_Before reorganization_ _Principal_ _Interest_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account