Companies Act 1985

44 Consideration for shares recently allotted to be valued. E+W+S

(1) The following applies if shares have been allotted by the company between the date as at which the relevant balance sheet was prepared and the passing of the special resolution under section 43, and those shares were allotted as fully or partly paid up as to their nominal value or any premium on them otherwise than in cash.

(2) Subject to the following provisions, the registrar of companies shall not entertain an application by the company under section 43 unless beforehand—

(a) the consideration for the allotment has been valued in accordance with section 108, and

(b) a report with respect to the value of the consideration has been made to the company (in accordance with that section) during the 6 months immediately preceding the allotment of the shares.

(3) Where an amount standing to the credit of any of the company’s reserve accounts, or of its profit and loss account, has been applied in paying up (to any extent) any of the shares allotted or any premium on those shares, the amount applied does not count as consideration for the allotment, and accordingly subsection (2) does not apply to it.

(4) Subsection (2) does not apply if the allotment is in connection with an arrangement providing for it to be on terms that the whole or part of the consideration for the shares allotted is to be provided by the transfer to the company or the cancellation of all or some of the shares, or of all or some of the shares of a particular class, in another company (with or without the issue to the company applying under section 43 of shares, or of shares of any particular class, in that other company).

(5) But subsection (4) does not exclude the application of subsection (2), unless under the arrangement it is open to all the holders of the shares of the other company in question (or, where the arrangement applies only to shares of a particular class, all the holders of the other company’s shares of that class) to take part in the arrangement.

In determining whether that is the case, shares held by or by a nominee of the company allotting shares in connection with the arrangement, or by or by a nominee of a company which is that company’s holding company or subsidiary or a company which is a subsidiary of its holding company, are to be disregarded.

(6) Subsection (2) does not apply to preclude an application under section 43, if the allotment of the company’s shares is in connection with its proposed merger with another company; that is, where one of the companies concerned proposes to acquire all the assets and liabilities of the other in exchange for the issue of shares or other securities of that one to shareholders of the other, with or without any cash payment to shareholders.

(7) In this section—

(a) “arrangement” means any agreement, scheme or arrangement, including an arrangement sanctioned in accordance with [F1 section 899 of the Companies Act 2006] (company compromise with creditors and members) or [F2 section 110 of the Insolvency Act] (liquidator in winding up accepting shares as consideration for sale of company’s property), and

(b) “another company” includes any body corporate F3 . . .

Textual Amendments

F1 Words in s. 44(7)(a) substituted (6.4.2008) by The Companies Act 2006 (Consequential Amendments etc) Order 2008 (S.I. 2008/948), arts. 2(2), 3(1), Sch. 1 para. 59 (with arts. 6, 11, 12)

F2 Words substituted by Insolvency Act 1986 (c. 45, SIF 66), s. 439(1), Sch. 13 Pt. I

F3 Words in s. 44(7)(b) repealed (22.7.2004) by Statute Law (Repeals) Act 2004 (c. 14), s. 1(1), {Sch. 1 Pt. 17 Group 5}