Student Company Secretary
21 Points
Joined April 2014
I would like to add a little to what CS Ankur Srivastava shared about free reserves. Actually Section 372A ( which is inserted as a new section to the Companies Act,1956 through an amendment in the year 1999 ) deals with Inter-corporate loans and investments,there are 10 sub-sections relating to various aspects of Inter-corporate loans and investments. At the end of this and before beginning section 373, two explanations are given- It says that for the purposes of Section 372A
1. "loan" includes debentures or any deposit of money made by one company with another company,not being a banking company;
2. "free reserves" means those reserves which, as per the latest audited balance sheet of the company,are free for distribution as dividend and shall include balance to the credit of the Securities Premium Account but shall not include Share Application Money.
Likewise we can find another explanation of "free reserves"given there under Clause 29A which defines what a "net worth" is ( section 2 of Companies Act,1956) -
for the purposes of Clause 29A, "free reserves" means all reserves created out of the profits and share premium account ( now securities premium account) but does not include reserves created out of revaluation of assets, write back of depreciation provisions and amalgamation.