56. For purposes of comparison Table VIII gives an analysis of the companies registered in the last five years according to the amounts of their nominal capital. This shows marked increases in the numbers of companies incorporated with capitals exceeding $500,000. It is especially noteworthy that no less than 14 companies were incorporated with capitals of $10,000,000 and above. There was in consequence a more than proportionate rise in the grand total of the nominal capitals from $616,000,000 in 1961-62 to $887,216,000, a figure only exceeded in 1946-47 and 1947-48 when the maximum registration fee being $500 there was no particular reason for a company's restricting the amount of its nominal capital.
57. 131 companies were dissolved during the year as follows:
By Members' Voluntary Winding-up
By Creditors' Voluntary Winding-up
By Winding-up by the Court
Struck off the Register under Section 276
39
3
1
88
131
Table IX gives an analysis of these 131 companies according to the nature of their business. The main casualties were in import and export companies (43), shipping, shipbuilding and shipbreaking companies (20), land and building companies (11), and hotels and restaurants (10).
58. With 1,149 new companies and 131 dissolutions there was a net increase of 1,018 in the number of companies on the register, which on 31st March 1963 stood at 6,209, comprising 489 public companies and 5,720 private companies.
59. In view of the large numbers of new companies registered in 1961-62 and 1962-63, there was naturally a correspondingly large increase in the numbers of documents received for filing and of inspec- tions of files by the public, the totals reaching the new record figures of 18,378 documents received and 9,230 inspections made.
60. During the war practically all of the records of the Companies Registry were lost, and the only pre-war Company files in existence are a number of files for what were formerly known as China companies, that is to say companies incorporated in Hong Kong but whose business was conducted and controlled in China. These files were transferred to the Registry from the British Consulate in Shanghai several years ago. New files had therefore to be opened for all pre-war companies, and with the passage of time both they and the files of the older post-war
19