LANCASHIRE STEEL ISSUE.
At the present time, when satisfactory opportunities for the employment of investment funds are difficult to come
by, even in the field of industrial prior charges, this week's issue at par of 1,400,000 5 per cent. cumulative redeemable first preference shares of £1 each in the Lancashire Steel Corporation, Limited, was an interesting proposition, and invested last week's meeting of the company with particular interest. The company was formed in 1930, and acquired by amalgamation certain iron and steel assets of the PearOn and Knowles Coal and Iron Company, Partington Steel and Iron Company and Wigan Coal and Iron Company, and the whole of the issued capital of Rylands Brothers, a separate subsidiary company amalgamating the corresponding coal businesses. Original finance for the amalgamation was provided by a banking group headed by Messrs. J. Henry Schroder and Company, and the soundness of the operation, both from the industrial and financial standpoint, is shown by the results for the past year, when a profit of £277,154 was earned after provision for depreciation, and without including the earnings of the Wigan Coal Corporation, the coal-owning subsidiary concern. The greater part of the year's profits was retained in the business by allocations to depreciation, including allowance for depreciation in previous years. The new preference issue was made chiefly for the purpose of converting the advances of the banking group into fixed capital, and to this extent brought to a close an interesting and successful project of industrial rationalization.
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