Your questions answered

My ancestor & the banana margarine business

Q My ancestor Arthur Edward Spackman bought the patent and floated the British Banana Margarine Company Ltd in 1910. Can you help me with further information please?

Mr Spackman

A This is one of the more unusual questions we have received. You later provided copies of an advert in The Grocer of 7 May 1910 in which the advertisers sought to raise £20,000 by the issue of 20,000 6% Cumulative and Participating Preference shares at £1 payable in instalments. The three directors, of whom A E Spackman (described as a merchant) was one, and their friends had underwritten 5,000 preference shares, or a quarter of the sum to be raised. I have not been able to find an online copy of patent 8279 of 1908 which is referred to in the advert. You would need to go to a patent library to get a copy. Nor have I been able to find any further details of the company online but there just might be surviving papers in such as The London Metropolitan Archives.

The total capital of the company was £50,000 of which £30,000 was in ordinary shares. There is no indication in the advert of who owned these or how many had been issued but an issue of at least 10,000 plus a further £5,000 in cash or shares was scheduled for 2 May 1910 in part payment for the patent rights. Of the overall payment £3,500 was for goodwill – a polite way a describing the difference between what was paid and what it was worth.

Ordinary shareholders are, in effect, the owners of a company and are entitled to a share of the profits by way of dividend payments. They also risk losing some or all of their investment if the company goes bust. Preference shares are a form of loan on which interest is paid and they usually rank higher for payment than ordinary shares if a company is wound up. 6% was quite a high interest rate for the time – the Forsytes were happy to settle