He also called into question the treatment of preference shares in the company accounts.

Preference shares are being redeemed at a total cost of about $295 million.

Preference shares may be issued up to one half of the registered capital.

To pay estate duties, the public were offered some preference shares.

The auditors also took issue with the accounting treatment of the preference shares.

It will mark the first time that a foreign company has offered dollar-denominated preference shares to the American public.

So there is no requirement to recognise a minority interest in respect of the preference shares.

During its 2009 fiscal year, the firm also concluded a preference share issue, with subscriptions of over $500 million.

Preference shares form an intermediate class of security between equities and debt.

Building societies use them in the way public limited companies use preference shares.

The subsidiary has non-cumulative preference shares in issue, all held by minorities.

Using their presence and 'high net worth', a further £4m of 8% convertible preference shares were sold to the institutions.

These preference shares paid a guaranteed annual dividend of 5% once the entire railway was open.

From June 1988 (see next section), the company began to use redeemable preference shares to raise capital.

The final ordinary dividend has been provided on the basis that all 8% preference shares will be converted.

Acceptances for the preference share offer totalled only 1.23 per cent.

Dividends on preference shares, many of which were held by Partners, were not paid.

Concurrent offering of 3.5 million preference shares in Colombia.

Some economists believe that the government should rescue troubled banks directly, by buying special issues of preference shares.

Perpetual non-cumulative preference shares may be included as Tier 1 capital.

More common examples include convertible and converting preference shares.

No final dividends are proposed on the new preference shares or the ordinary shares.

To prevent a hostile takeover by Standard Oil, preference shares were issued.

The common feature of all these is equity participation (limited in the case of preference shares).

The company also has preference shares, which for practical purposes are generally the same as preferred shares.