ment Trusts before they are put upon the market."
The business of managing a Trust looks easy to an outsider who has never tried it. If one were to start to-day, with the right people behind it, it ought to be able to raise a million capital and split it into £600,000 5 per cent. preference and £400,000 ordinary; whatever it could earn above 5 per cent. on its investments would thus be available after paying that rate to its ordinary shareholders, for dealing with preliminary expenses and starting a reserve fund, the return from which as invested would increase the income of the ordinary shareholder. And profits, if any, from underwriting new issues and from realizations of securities, would be available for the same purposes. If the first few difficult years are passed, the rest of the life of the concern should be one of increasing income, as long as it steadily adheres to the principle of always dividing less than it earns and putting the balance into well-selected securities.
It looks easy, but the career of Trust companies has been by no means uniformly successful. An interesting pamphlet[1] on
- ↑ Published by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Trade Information Bulletin, No. 88, April, 1923.
