The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-01-22
LIGHT LET INTO FIDELITY.
CONTINUED from page u

| sContinued from page Ii
deity Company purported to call in
the balance of outstanding assessments
on its stock, but as matter of fact
the assessable stockholders never paid
up "a cent of money. The greater part
of the transaction was merely a piece
of stock-trading jugglery between the
Fidelity Insurance Co, and the Homo
lulu Investment Co. Even that bust
ness. as well as the payments by indi-
vidual stockholders of the former, was
based on demand notes Those VINO
know anything about the status of Ho-
nolulu Investment Co. stock might not
find it hard to guess the rate at which
demand note of that corporation
would be discounted by any bank in
Honolulu. Mr. Smithies said yester-
day:
1.-The Honolulu Investment Company
transferred to the Fidelity Company an.
Iwilei leasehold valued at $4,000 and
gave the Fidelity Company a demand
note for $4,000. From each of the
other stockholders the Fidelity Co.a-
pany received demand notes for the
amounts due from them. I am salts
fed under these circumstances that TO
cash was paid in at all and have there
fore revoked the Fidelity Companyis
certificate allowing it to do business
The payments made to the Fidelity
Company, to bring it up to the laws
standard, are stated as follows: Homo
lulu Investment Co. holding 1900
shares $4,000: A. V. Gear. $50; w. NJ.
Minton, $50; Fan Con. 500; w. R. Far
rington, 500; Emmett May, $3.50. These
sums amount to S31, 40.
Mr.. Smithies said further, in COM
ment on the Fidelity showing:
81 do not see how the company could
meet policies. It's assets as shown by
the statements are principally realty
of a kind that cannot be quickly cor
verted into ready cash. Each piece, |
with the exception of the Iwilei lea =
hold, is subject to a mortgage. Unde: |
the law as it stands there was nothing |
for me to do but what I have done"
It might be added that there has |
been a good deal of talk for several |
past among those stockholders |
of the Honolulu Investment Co, who |
are kept in the frigid zone by the di- |
rectors, of taking legal steps to obtain |
an accounting of the company's opera |
tions and true standing and, if such |
showed it to be advisable, to have the !
wound up and a distribution
made of its assets.
'"They never put up a cent of mon
ey," the Attorney General said yester-
day. 1.-THE Honolulu Investment Co..
and the Fidelity Insurance Co, merely
traded stock. They have the same
officers and one merely voted money
to the other, and the cash paid up in
the Fidelity Company was nothing but
demand notes. The Fidelity Company
bought the Investment Company's
stock, which has never paid a dividend.
IT'S directors are exactly the same par
ties as those of the Fidelity Insurance
Co."
Mr.. Andrews was questioned on the
subject after leaving his office yester-
lay evening, so was not in a position
% refer to documentary particulars On
lie in his department.
The Honolulu Investment Co. was
1oated in the height of the 1899 boom,
and its minority stockholders regard it
oday as a star humbug of that period.
Most of the stock subscriptions called
n the first year were pumped into the
Wildcat Maunalei plantation scheme
Ind there forever disappeared.
The Fidelity Insurance Co. would APP
bear to have been started by the d.
'ectorate of the Honolulu Investment
20, with a special eye to capturing
share of the heavy bonding business
lnder the County Act. 1t has done a
,ood deal of bonding in the courts.
A statement of the Fidelity Insur-
nee Co. is advertised in this issue by
emmett MayI it's secretary. Its list
f assets consists in the main of prop
rty that the minority stockholders CT
he Honolulu Investment Co have re-
arded as the sole value appertaining
o their shares in that corporation. AS
he Deputy Commissioner points out,
hese interchangeable assets are, with
ne comparatively small exception, en-
with mortgages. :
=,
Close Call.