At the beginning of March the Iron and Steel Holding and Realisation Agency made a simultaneous Offer for Sale of twelve prior charge securities of seven major steel companies, comprising debenture and loan stocks to a nominal amount of over £73 million and some 32 million £1 preference shares of various classes, involving cash subscriptions totalling £85 million in all. This was almost certainly the most complicated and, in terms of money raised though not of applications received, the largest commercial issuing operation undertaken in the London market in recent years. A brief description of some of its features may illustrate a few of the problems to which such a sale can give rise.
Sale of the prior charges of seven steel companies