Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-12-30 | Page 51 | Sale of California-Comstock Explained

SiWCSLIFlF About $200,000 Remains to Be Distributed Among Stockholders. REGRET IS EXPRESSED Many Causes Are Given for Liquidation of the Property. . In explanat ion of the art ion la ken recently re-cently by the boa I'd of directors of the Oalifornia-Comstook and later sanctioned at a special meeting of the stockholders, providing for the sale of the property for ?;jco.00ii, a letter was sent to stockholders yesterday by the firm of Evans, .Morris k , & Whitney, which had in charge the financing of the company. It is set forth in the letter that the sale of the property was sanctioned at a meet ins at which 4 .1 , r 11 shares of stock wore personally represented and lL'I,:joit shares by proxy. The total shares outstanding' were Cfio.son. Of the purchase price, Sir,M,()()0 was paid December t, and the remaining $1 .",0,0(10 is to be paid January Janu-ary 24. With reference to l lie financial status of the company and the cause of the sale, the letter says: Causes of Sale Many. The company has an indebtedness of approximately 10:), "00. which is now being liquidated. There will remain re-main ?2')",0fi(i, or approximately lii cents a share, to be distributed to st nek holders. This distribution will take place immediately after the second sec-ond payment, January 24. That the company should have found it necessary to dispose ol" the property at this time is due primarily to two causes: First, the hig decline in the price of lead; second, the impossibility im-possibility of selling anyconsiderable amount of treasury stock during the past three months because of the depressed de-pressed market, a market that has seen industrial and mining securities alike decline from 2o per cent to ion per cent, effecting enormous losses even in such securities as Utah Copper Cop-per and United States Steel. There vere besides the lesser causes of greatly increased cost of supplies and labor, the difficulties of securing labor la-bor even of F0 per cent efficiency. That these conditions should have arisen could not have been foreseen during the summer, when the property prop-erty gave so great promise of splendid profits. Tt began shipping uifder a lead price that guaranteed big net returns and with a well established market for its treasury shares. Op-4 Op-4 orations and development work have been carried on steadily since with n larire fnrce of men. in the belief that conditions would change. They have not changed. Lead dropped from a price of $11.50 to as low as Sr...",o. Mining securities are selling for a lower price on the western markets mar-kets today than over before in the history of the industry. Many merits meri-ts torious properties have a book value I less than the value of the ore actually Jl blocked out in the mine. Put Up to Stockholders. Realizing these conditions, the Calif Cal-if ornla-Oomstock Consolidated directors direc-tors faced the alternative of assessing the stock or accepting a cash offer of SSuO.OOO for the property of the company. It was deemed best to put the whole question up to the stockholders, stock-holders, and tliis was done, with the result above stated. While it is a matter of deep regret that shareholders will not participate in the profits this mine should eventually event-ually make, on the other hand, their losses are exceedingly small, and they do not now face the danger of some forced liquidation in the future, should market conditions fail to mend.