Polar Sun Research

QuoteBonds are a relatively old form of financing. Formalized debt arrangements long preceded corporate structure and the idea of equity (stock) as we know it. Venice issued the first known government bonds of the modern era in 1157,Isadore Barmash, The Self-Made Man (Washington, DC: Beard Books, 2003), 55. while private bonds are cited in British records going back to the thirteenth century. George Burton Adams, The Constitutional History of England (London: H. Holt, 1921), 93. Venice issued bonds to raise funds to finance a Crusade against Constantinople, which included expansion of a shipyard attached to the Venetian Arsenal. (Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Arsenal to view images.)