General Investment Co. v. Bethlehem Steel Corp.

100 A. 347, 87 N.J. Eq. 234, 2 Stock. 234, 1917 N.J. Ch. LEXIS 90
CourtNew Jersey Court of Chancery
DecidedMarch 6, 1917
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 100 A. 347 (General Investment Co. v. Bethlehem Steel Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Jersey Court of Chancery primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
General Investment Co. v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 100 A. 347, 87 N.J. Eq. 234, 2 Stock. 234, 1917 N.J. Ch. LEXIS 90 (N.J. Ct. App. 1917).

Opinion

Lane, Y. C.

(orally at conclusion of argument on motion for temporary injunction).

This is an application for a temporary injunction to restrain Bethlehem Steel Corporation from increasing its capital stock. [235]*235The present capital stock is $30,000,000, divided one-half preferred and the other common, with equal voting rights. The plan is to increase the capital stock by $45,000,000, the additional to be called common, class B. Of this $30,000,000 is to be put out as a stock dividend; $15,000,000 is to be sold. The stock is to have all the characteristics of common except that it will have no vote. The surplus of the company amounts to something like $69,000,000, and the scheme is proposed so as to get a part of this surplus orrt into the hands of stockholders and yet leave the money with the company as working capital. The intent of those who formulated the plan was to keep control of the company in its present stockholders. It is said that there is a good business reason for so doing. As part of the transaction a contract was entered into by the company under which Seligman & Company, bankers, agreed to form a syndicate to.underwrite the issue of $15,000,000 of the new stock. They were to be paid a certain commission, amounting, in case the plan was unsuccessful, I think, to $225,000, and, in case it was successful, to $450,000. A portion of this commission was to be retained by Seligman & Companjq and the remainder to be paid to those who should become syndicate subscribers. Among the syndicate subscribers wore certain directors of the company, including Mr. Schwab. The plan was promulgated January 25th, 1917, and immediately became public. The bill is brought by the General Investment Company, a corporation dominated and controlled by Clarence H. Veun'er. He bought his stock—one hundred shares —January 31st, 1917, and immediately notified the company of opposition to' the plan. He filed his bill on February 9th. The meeting of stockholders called for the purpose of acting on the increase was scheduled to be held February 14th. The last day for stockholders to subscribe, under the sjmdicate agreement is March 8th. The contract between the company and the bankers provided for a limited time of: performance. It is represented, and the court will take judicial notice of the fact, that in the present unsettled condition of affairs, contracts of this nature, dealing with the sums here dealt with, must be entered into with a very-limited time provided for performance, nothing else is conceivable.

[236]*236On the day fixed the meeting was held. There was voted in favor of the plan one hundred and twenty-six thousand three hundred and seventy shares of preferred, and one hundred and twelve thousand one hundred and fifty-six shares of common, stock, and against the plan, four hundred and fifty shares of preferred, and one hundred and twenty-five shares of common, stock, of which latter one hundred shares were those held by the complainant.

There is another common stockholder holding twenty-five shares who, after argument by complainant’s counsel, to-day seeks to intervene. In view of my conclusions, I shall deny her application. The situation, therefore, is that over ninety-nine per cent, of the present stock desire that the plan should go forward, and opposition is made by only one hundred and twenty-five shares. Of these one. hundred were actually bought after the promulgation of the plan, and, I think, for the sole purpose of bringing this suit, notwithstanding the denial of Mr. Yenner. The law seems to be settled that even under, these circumstances this court must consider any equitable or legal right which the complainant may have cognizable or enforceable only in a court ■of equity. Hodge v. United States Steel Corporation, 64 N. J. Eq. 111. The reason of the rule, I assume, is, as applied to stock, that to hold otherwise would be to impose a restraint upon alienation. A holder of stock before the threatened act must be able to transfer all of his rights to anyone or the value of the stock may be affected. Notwithstanding this rule, before this court will intervene, at the suit of a stockholder who buys in. under the conditions .present here, a very small amount of stock, to prevent the carrjdng out of a plan such as this, approved by practically the entire stock issued, it must be satisfied that the right of the complainant is clear and the injury irreparable. Yico-Chancollor Pitney in Trimble v. American Sugar Refining Co. 61 N. J. Eq. 340 (at p. 345). The attack made upon the plan I will consider, putting out of mind, as far as I can, the circumstances under which it comes here.

Complainant asserts, firstly, that the corporation has no power to issue a class of common stock, or a class of stock having all the characteristics of common stock, without the voting privilege; [237]*237secondly, that because it is admitted that the purpose is to perpetuate the present control of the corporation, and because some-of the directors who voted in favor of it became syndicate subscribers, and therefore will profit by its success, the entire proceedings are void.

1. Whether the corporation has the legal power to issue this class of stock depends upon the construction to be put upon the eighteenth section of the Corporation act. Revision of 1896, Comp. Slat. p. 160S. E'rom a casual reading of that section it would seem that stock of any kind, nature or description, common or preferred, or whatever it may be called, may be created with or without voting privileges. Counsel for complainant insists that the section must be construed in the light of a public policy said to have prevailed at the time the section was adopted and to prevail now, i. e., that common stockholders, at least, are entitled to consultation with, and advice of, and action by every other common stockholder, and that the policy of the law required that a corporation should bo managed by a majority of its stock. In other words, the privilege of voting is necessarily incidental to common stock. The cases relied on are Cone v. Russell & Mason, 48 N. J. Eq. 208; White v. Thomas Inflatable Tire Co., 52 N. J. Eq. 178; but see Chapman v. Bates, 61 N. J. Eq. 658 (at p. 667).

The question is not, however, whether after a person has purchased stock in a corporation having a certain amount of stock vested with • the right to vote, these fellow-stockholders may voluntarily separate the right of property from the right to vote, and thus put the control of the corporation in the hands of those-having no pecuniary-interest therein and deprive the dissenting stockholder of the advice and action of those whose advice and action he may have fairly be said to have contracted for, but rather whether such stockholder - is entitled to require that any new stock issued should be vested with the privilege of voting, a very different proposition-. I have examined, in the short time I haye had, all the cases that I could locate and I have failed to find any statement of such public policy, with, possibly, the exception of a remark made by Judge Lurton in Hamlin v. Toledo. St. Louis Railroad (C. C. A.), 78 Fed. Rep. 664, in [238]*238which, while sustaining an issue of preferred stock, or, rather, an issue of stock which was neither preferred or common, a rather peculiar kind of stock, as he called it, he said: “They surrendered the privilege of voting. That was, perhaps, a valid agreement between stockholders, though of doubtful public policy.” >

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Bluebook (online)
100 A. 347, 87 N.J. Eq. 234, 2 Stock. 234, 1917 N.J. Ch. LEXIS 90, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/general-investment-co-v-bethlehem-steel-corp-njch-1917.