Companies (Amendment) Act, 1983

Ancillary provisions.

51.—(1) Where immediately before the appointed day a company is authorised by any provision of its articles to apply its unrealised profits in paying up in full or in part unissued shares to be allotted to members of the company as fully or partly paid bonus shares, that provision shall, subject to any subsequent alteration of the articles, continue to be construed as authorising those profits to be so applied after the appointed day.

(2) In this Part “distribution” means every description of distribution of a company's assets to members of the company, whether in cash or otherwise, except distributions made by way of—

(a) an issue of shares as fully or partly paid bonus shares;

(b) the redemption of preference shares out of the proceeds of a fresh issue of shares made for the purposes of the redemption and the payment of any premium on their redemption out of the company's share premium account;

(c) the reduction of share capital by extinguishing or reducing the liability of any of the members on any of its shares in respect of share capital not paid up or by paying off paid up share capital; and

(d) a distribution of assets to members of the company on its winding up.

(3) In this Part “capitalisation”, in relation to any profits of a company, means any of the following operations, whether carried out before, on or after the appointed day, that is to say, applying the profits in wholly or partly paying up unissued shares in the company to be allotted to members of the company as fully or partly paid bonus shares or transferring the profits to the capital redemption reserve fund.

(4) In this Part reference to profits and losses of any description are references respectively to profits and losses of that description made at any time, whether before, on, or after the appointed day and, except where the context otherwise requires, are references respectively to revenue and capital profits and revenue and capital losses.

(5) The provisions of this Part are without prejudice to any enactment or rule of law or any provision of a company's memorandum or articles restricting the sums out of which, or the cases in which, a distribution may be made.

(6) The provisions of this Part shall not apply to any distribution made by a company, other than a public limited company registered as such on its original incorporation, before the date on which the earlier of the following events occurs, that is to say, the re-registration or registration of the company as a public limited company and the end of the general transitional period.