Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/175

 the bond, but sometimes a small bonus is thrown in on redemption, and £105 or so is paid for the £100 stock or bond. This is usually confined to cases in which the debtor has a right of redeeming at an early date, as when a company issues bonds redeemable, at its option, at £105 in ten years or at £100 in thirty years. In the case of Bass & Co. the 4½ and 3½ per cent. Debentures are redeemable at the option of the company at 117 and 110 respectively.

In addition to these rights and frillings, holders of company debts, such as are described as mortgage bonds or mortgage debentures, have the right of foreclosure over part or all of the company's property in the event of its defaulting in the interest payments or redemption service. The value of this right evidently depends on the price at which the property pledged could, in case of foreclosure, be sold for the benefit of the creditors. And so here we find ourselves back in the region of guesswork. And very often we do not even know the book values of the assets that we are trying to guess about. Prospectuses frequently offer notes or debentures, with the label "first mortgage" attached, and say, for example, that they are specifically charged on the freehold and leasehold property, and then give a