1913-1970 General Notes

- Arthur Fell was also the chairman of The African City Properties (ACP) Trust Ltd , which held real estate assets (and possibly acted as a front for mineral rights) in Johannesburg; The ACP Trust was taken over by Bernard and Sam Glazer, in partnership with Volkskas Ltd, in 1952 (no corresponding share info for Crest for this period). Fell was later knighted; he died in 1934.

- Ludwig Ehrlich had dual German and British citizenship and was also director of The HE Proprietary Ltd; no information has been requested for the aforementioned company.

- No financial statements appear on the file until 1970. Sporadic returns appear for the years 1913-1949, mostly changes of directorships. No records at all for the years 1935-1938, 1940-1942, 1950-1956, 1960-1969.

- A document on the file gives the early history as follows: ‘The company was incorporated in 1913 in order to pursue mining activities in Russia, but this object was frustrated by the Russian Revolution, following which the company invested its funds primarily in other mining companies.’ Details of its investments in mining companies are not known, although it did emerge in 1970 with shares in Consolidated Gold Fields and a whole bunch of South Africans on the board (see 1972 below).

- The auditors, Annan, Dexter & Co, became Dearden, Lord, Annan, Morrish (later Dearden Farrow , the auditors for Boohat Thirty-Nine , which acquired the shares of Volkskas International viaCoptic Finance Ltd). The address for The African City Properties Trust in Johannesburg, and one of its main assets, was Annan House. The chairman of Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa Ltd from 1944 through 1960 was Robert Annan. Any links between these occurrences of the same name have not been established.

- A one-for-two rights issue took place in 1959; the return of allotments form showed the major shareholders as:

Anglo-Canadian Trustees , Friars House, 39-41 New Broad St, London, which had become the address of this company in 1949 (2 452 shares = 9,4%)

Standard Bank Nominees Ltd , 10 Clements Lane, London (16 400 shares = 63%)