BANKING TRADE AND COMMERCE

JOINT STOCK COMPANIES

The evolution of the modern joint-stock companies can be traced to a period when the proprietory or in a few cases the partnership type of concerns had existed in the district. The old District Gazetteer mentions a few such concerns engaged in meeting the needs of individuals, who were mostly agriculturists. The companies as they exist today are, however, far different from the old ones both in their form as well as in their methods of collecting enormous funds. They are, in fact, developed as a suitable form of business organisation to minimise the instability and hazards of business and to enable it to raise large capital resources in order to meet its growing demands.

Two types of joint-stock companies are at present in existence in the district-(1) private limited companies and (2) public limited companies. The Companies Act of 1956 describes the former as one which restricts the right to transfer its shares, limits the number of its members to fifty and prohibits raising public subscriptions for any shares, or debentures of the company. The Act further lays down that "no company, association or partnership consisting of more than twenty persons shall be formed for the purpose of carrying on any other business that has for its object the acquisition of gain by the company, association or partnership or by the individual members thereof unless it is registered as a company".

Private Limited Companies.

By 1962, there were in the district nineteen private limited companies. All of them were started during the war or post-war period, the oldest of them being the Madhavnagar Cotton Mills and the Budhgaon Trading Company, both registered on 25th March 1944. Among others four companies were registered in the fifties of the present century and three after 1962. The objects of these companies differ widely as the following table would indicate:-

TABLE No. 19

CLASSIFICATION OF JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES, PRIVATE LIMITED

The table indicates that of the nineteen private limited companies, only one is engaged in the manufacture of cotton cloth and one in oil extracting. In the engineering field there are three companies, in chemicals two, in general trading three, and in miscellaneous six companies have been working in the district. Almost all these companies have issued ordinary shares to raise the funds.

Among public limited companies excluding banks the oldest company in the district is the Kirloskar Brothers, Ltd., registered in 1920. Most of the other concerns came up during the postwar period. By 1962 there were 15 companies in the district. Their broad classification indicates that ten of them belonged to the manufacturing group, two to the trading group and the rest to the financial group. Of the manufacturing group three companies were engaged in engineering works, three in printing and publishing, two in oil extraction and one each in the production of sugar and matches,

The financial position of these companies is given in next page.-

TABLE No. 20

FINANCIAL POSITION OF THE PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANIES, SANGLI DISTRICT

*This also includes making and repairing of furniture, agricultural implements, machine tools, etc.

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