Fonds: Sociedade Geral Agrícola e Financeira de Portugal
Date of creation: 10 September 1873
Date of extinction: 31 December 1895
Administrative history: By a deed entered into on 10 September 1873, the Sociedade Geral Agrícola e Financeira de Portugal, a public limited company with its Head Office in Lisbon, was established for an unlimited period. It was created with national and foreign capital (especially French), and its capital stock amounted to 10,800,000$000 réis. According to the statutes published in Diário do Governo (which was the Official Gazette of Portugal) of 22 September, it was set out to accomplish the following aims:
”1. To acquire, explore…, cultivated and uncultivated land and lands reclaimed from the rivers and tides;
2. To lend money against mortgage, pledge or duly secured by a personal guarantee to any agricultural company or to the benefit of rural cultivations;
3. To carry out all agricultural credit transactions ;
4. To promote and assist …, by means of a cash loan or public works contract of any nature, contracts with the State, Districts, Municipalities and other public authorities, with societies, companies and private entities the works or companies related to: the drainage of marshland and the fixing of moveable assets and all kinds of agricultural improvements; water systems and recovery; improvement of harbours; the establishment and use of docks; the construction of housing for workers and all those working in defence of the embellishment and utility of cities or villages; the construction of all classes of roads and high speed roads and tracks; traffic and circulation of the latter and, in general, all works of general or local public interest, or of particular convenience;
5. To acquire, open and lease, by sale or letting, all types of mines;
6. To contract and negotiate the public loans of the State, Districts and Municipalities…
7. To negotiate or make discounts and loans on any security or trade values, public debt securities and shares of banks or accredited companies, to carry out all bank operations involving discount, deposit and circulation under the terms of the laws…
8. To provide agricultural, life and pension insurances and life or temporary annuities and any other risk and insurance contracts”.
The Society was managed by a Governing Board consisting of 14 members, 9 residing in Lisbon, the remaining 5 in Paris. They formed the Paris Branch of the Board or Paris Committee, whose President, Baron Maximilian Koenigswarter, was behind the association of foreign capital.
In 1881, the Paris Committee disappeared with the death of Baron Koenigswarter and the Society entered into an agreement with the foreign shareholders. All the shares in their possession, reaching a total of 6,350 were transferred by endorsement to the Society. The Society granted a quarter of such shares to a national capitalist union, created for the effect. As a result, the General Meeting of 30 January 1884 approved the new statutes, and the capital was reduced to 3,024,000$000 réis.
Thus, the Society lost its projection abroad and went on to be constituted by exclusively Portuguese capitalists.
As a result of the economic crisis of 1890, the Society entered into a process of decline and the official liquidation proceedings began in 1895.
As of 1897 liquidation of the Society was carried out by Banco de Portugal,
whence the Bank holds its documentation. The latter is a reflection of the activity of the Society and covers not only the period during which the Institution operated, but also that of its liquidation.
Information related specifically to its liquidation may also be found in Banco de Portugal documentation.
Documentation dates: 1873-1897
No. items: 116
Extent: 4.3 Lm
Finding aid: Arquivo da Sociedade Geral Agrícola e Financeira de Portugal (Col. Inventários, 8)
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All documentation is microfilmed and digitalized.