Registrar-Generals-Department-Annual-report-1964-1965 — Page 39

106. Fifteen bankruptcy petitions were presented during the year, five more than in 1963–64, so that with one petition pending from 1963–64 there were in all sixteen petitions before the Court. Ten Receiving Orders one of which was rescinded later in the year and one Administration Order were made, one petition adjourned sine die, one adjourned to a date to be fixed by the Registrar, one dismissed by the Court, and one withdrawn, leaving one pending at 31st March 1965. Adjudication Orders were made in nine cases, two of which originated in 1963–64. The Official Receiver became Trustee in every case.

107. The number of petitions for the compulsory winding up of companies also increased substantially, there being nineteen as against eleven in 1963-64. To these nineteen there fell to be added two pending from 1963-64, making in all twenty-one petitions before the Court. Three were dismissed by consent, and seven were pending at 31st March 1965. Winding-Up Orders were made in the remaining eleven cases, and the Official Receiver as usual subsequently became liquidator in all of these.

108. Table XXII shows the estimated assets and liabilities in the ten bankruptcies and eleven compulsory liquidations in respect of which orders were made during the year, classified according to trades and occupations. The estimated liabilities totalled $21,817,929 and the estimat- ed assets $13,099,532. These estimates are normally based on information given by the debtors and are seldom reliable indications of the true position. For instance, the banker included in this Table, the proprietor of the Ming Tak Bank, optimistically estimated his assets as being in excess of his liabilities.

The Ming Tak Bank

109. This case, which is referred to in more detail in paragraph 5, is in terms of estimated liabilities certainly the largest bankruptcy since the war and probably, though one cannot be sure in the absence of full records, the largest that has ever occurred in the Colony. As shown in Table XXII the liabilities are estimated at over $12,000,000.

Pre-war Bankruptcy Cases

110. There were eight pre-war cases on hand, in seven of which a final dividend had already been paid and only formal closure proceedings were required.

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