866 the Regular Dividends." Owing to the Fact That These Privileges
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866 EXPANSION [Bk. IV the regular dividends." Owing to the fact that these privileges occur at infrequent intervals they do not increase the market m There have been two exhaustive studies of this subject, each writer using specific cases. T. W. Mitchell studied the profits to stockholders in 1905, using chiefly railroads as his data. S. S. Burgunder made a similar study in 1910, using the same data. There has been no exhaustive study of the privileged subscriptions of industrials. Since 1910 the privileged subscriptions of industrials have been more numerous and important than in the case of railroads. Burgunder gives an interesting table showing the number of times privileged subscriptions have been offered between 1880 and 1910 for eleven corporations. No. of Times Owner of 100 Shares in Name Privileged 1880 Would Have in Subscriptions 1910 American Telephone & Telegraph Co 3 200.00 Baltimore & Ohio Railroad 4 209.30 Canadian Pacific Railway 5 269.57 Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway s 253 .69 (together with 101.48 pfr.) Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway. 2 132.00 Great Northern Railway 8 693.00 (together with 49s ore certificates) Illinois Central Railroad 8 363.32 New York Central & Hudson River Railroad 5 24s. 20 Pennsylvania Railroad 9 384.76 Northern Central Railway 3 225.00 United Gas Improvement Co 8 559. 6s Burgunder then goes on to say: "In addition to the greater increase in the amount of stock procured, in a railroad like the Great Northern, the subsequent rise in price of the stock made those new shares worth more than when issued." He then goes on, by elaborate calculations to show the net yield to the stockholder, provided a stockholder had bought stock .at the time a privileged subscription was first offered. The results are somewhat arbitrary in that they stop at 1910 and assume, throughout, that )he interest value of investment funds is 5 per cent.^^ T. W. Mitchell studied, in 1905, the cases of five railroads which had then made frequent use of the privileged subscription as a means of securing money for extensions—Illinois Central, eight issues between 1887 and 1903; Great Northern, five issues between 1893 and 1903; New York Central, three issues between 1893 and 1903; Baltimore and Ohio, three issues between 1899 and 1903; Missouri Pacific, six issues between 1886 and 1903. He summarizes the statistical study of these five cases as follows: "A review of the five sets of privileges set forth in the above tables will bring out several facts. First, a company which is in a sound financial condition, as are the Illinois Central and the Great Northern, and which pursues a liberal policy toward its stockholders, may greatly add to their annual income through the privileges it offers. Secondly the profits from these sources are not adequately reflected in the market price of the stock. Thus the Illinois Central stock, which has in recent years been yielding its holders from 8.25 to 11.9 per cent on its par value, has been selling at from $120 to $170, prices which should go with a 6 to 8 per cent stock. Great Northern stock has been paying its holders from 15 to 21 per cent per annum on its par value; yet its market quotations have ranged only from $136 to $200, prices which should naturally go with a 7 to 12 per cent investment. This is naturally to be expected. The 12 Burgunder, S. S., "The Declaration and Yield of Stockholders' Rights," 35 An. Am. Ac. Pol. Soc. Sci. 560-578 (May, loiol. .