Abstract The holding company may be defined as a company which holds a substantial interest in the stock of one or more corporations. Organizations have been established and are in operation at the present time which hold a minority interest in some one corporation, their investment in this company being a very small part of their total assets, as of March 1933. This is one extreme. The other is the giant corporation, the assets of which consist in entirety of the securities of other corporations. In the broad sense of the term, these are both holding companies and there may be found holding companies at each stage between these two extremes. The author attempts to distinguish between the pure holding company and the so-called parent company. Students of corporation finance generally agree that the pure holding company is one which owns no physical properties in its own name and operates none as an organization. Its function is one of holding securities in other corporations for the purpose of directing their activities. The parent company owns both physical properties and securities of other corporations. It has a two-fold purpose, that of operating its producing assets and controlling the properties of its subsidiaries through stock voting.

Reviews the book "Principles of Investment," 2nd ed., by John E. Kirshman.

Abstract The U.S. Office of Price Administration (OPA) has had an assignment generally unique in American economic activity. It has been given the responsibility for price control, rent control, and rationing, three activities that were not customary for the American people. In some form OPA affects practically every person in the nation. Its programs have required a large amount of accounting work, and just as these programs of price control, rent control, and rationing were new to the average citizen, the great use to which accounting had to be put was new to both industry and government. The purpose of this article is to set forth the manner in which accounting is used within OPA and to show its place in the over-all program of the agency. In establishing wartime controls in fields where the American people had never before had such controls, it was necessary to set up an organization that would be flexible enough to permit efficient operation in the face of a rapidly developing emergency. To obtain such an organization, a staff that would combine a wide range of training and experience had to be recruited. Business specialists from industry, specialists in industrial research and economics, lawyers, accountants, and other specialists were called on to cooperate in this new undertaking.

Abstract The National Housing Act provides for the insurance of mortgages. Section 205 of the act states that all mortgages accepted for insurance shall be so classified into groups and that the mortgages in any group shall involve substantially similar risk characteristics and have similar maturity dates. Premium charges received for the insurance of the mortgage and earnings from all properties taken over by the administrator shall be credited to the group account. However, there are several accounting problems raised by the act. There is room for considerable variation in the interpretation of the law that will have a bearing upon the accounting procedure to be established. There is little question that the accountant is required to classify the mortgages into groups of similar risk characteristics and similar maturity dates. When the groups have been established, they may be liquidated in two ways. First, when the balance in the group account exceeds the outstanding balance of the mortgages in the group by ten per cent of the total premiums paid and, second, when the balance in the account fails to reach the above figure one year before maturity of the mortgages, ten per cent of the premiums paid shall be transferred to the general reinsurance account and the balance, if any, transferred to the mortgages for the benefit of the mortgagors.