A. T. & T.

The post-War problem of the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. in obtaining funds for bettering its equipment and service has been a huge one. Fortunately, the Company has enjoyed far-sighted management and excellent credit. As a result, the capitalization of the Company has been steadily increased through sales of its securities to the public. After a campaign designed to sell stock to telephone subscribers, such wide distribution of A. T. & T. shares has been obtained that the company's stockholders now number 300,000. This is the largest shareholders' list in the world; if all the company's share-partners lived in one city, the latter would rank 20th in population in the U. S.

But "Tel. & Tel." has not been satisfied by becoming the only billion-dollar public utility concern in the country. Last week, it successfully floated $125,000,000 35-year bonds to finance further additions and betterments to the associated Bell Telephone companies.

The issue was notable in two respects. It was the largest bond issue ever floated by the company, and the largest of any kind offered since the $150,000,000 Japanese Government loan of less than a year ago. Moreover, the terms of the loan were second only to those accorded to our Federal Government and our stronger states. The coupon of the Telephone issue is 5%, and the bonds were sold to the public at 95 to yield about 5.30. This interest charge is about one-third less than that recently obtainable by the Governments of Japan, Germany, France and Belgium, on their recent large loans in our financial markets.