| Code | industrial reconstructionNA5 |
| Corporate Name | Securities Management Trust Ltd |
| Dates | 1929 - |
| OtherFormsOfName | SMT |
| Activity | During the interwar years, the Bank of England under the Governor Montagu Norman became directly involved in industrial reconstruction. The Bank became a major shareholder in various industrial organisations including Vickers Armstrongs Ltd, the Lancashire Cotton Corporation (LCC), and the Lancashire Steel Corporation (LSC). The growth of the Bank's commitments outside its normal sphere of activities necessitated the foundation of two new bodies - the Bankers Industrial Development Company (BIDC) and the Securities Management Trust Ltd (SMT).
The Securities Management Trust Limited (SMT) was incorporated in November 1929 with a capital of £1,000. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Bank, the company's purpose was to provide the channel through which the Bank would support and provide the funds for industrial reorganisation. In the event, its principal task was rather to oversee the unwinding of commitments into which the Bank had already ventured or was about to do so in consequence of political pressures. With the establishment in 1945, under the guidance of the Bank, of the Finance Corporation for Industry (FCI) and the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation (ICFC), the original need for the SMT was extinguished but it continued to hold shares and receive dividends and interest until 1964. |
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