Notes on the Societe Generale de Credit Mobilier

Abstract

The dividends of the Societe Generale de Credit Mobilier for the past year have been at the rate of 40 per cent; and its 500-franc shares sold for 1980 francs each, or at a premium of nearly 300 per cent. How is this to be reconciled with prognostications of want of success? Very easily, it appears to me. In the first place, it is quite possible those dividends have been paid out of capital, not profits; and that system, we all know, cannot go on long. And, in the second place, it is not unlikely that one of the various avocations of the Company lias been really a source of profit, but then a source of profit which must quickly be dried up.