Stock Watering: The Judicial Valuation Of Property For Stock-Issue Purposes Dodd, David L. Business & Investing,Economics,Law

First edition, first printing. viii, 333, [3] pp. Bound in publisher's ribbed navy cloth lettered in gilt. Very Good+ with light shelf wear; trivial staining to cloth. Dust soiling to top edge; former owner's name on front free endpaper. Light toning to contents, which are free of markings. Scarce. Dodd's first work, preceding by four years the publication of his and Benjamin Graham's stock-market classic Security Analysis. A descriptive text of American Law and corporate finance published in the dreary aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. It was based on Dodd's phD dissertation at Columbia. In a brief essay on Dodd for The Museum of America Finance James Russell Kelly writes: "He defined stock watering 'as the issuance of nominally fully paid stock in an amount exceeding the value of the assets against which the stock has been issued.' His dissertation seeks to 'answer the question as to what the courts mean by "value" when they interpret the laws which require that stock must be issued for property or services at a fair valuation.' The issue was complicated by the existence of both historical par value and newly popular non-par value shares issued by different companies. Dodd's conclusion for non-par value shares was to propose a series of minimum requirements for companies issuing stock. These included an independent audit, a balance sheet valuation, an annual balance sheet, annual profit and loss statements and a prospectus.".