Authorized share capital consists of 2 000 000 shares of no par value.

The issued ordinary shares as at 1 September 2012 had been issued at R2 each. On 31 December, 520 000 ordinary shares were issued at R2.50 each.

Calculate the number of ordinary shares in issue as at 31 August 2012.

Not enough information provided to solve this problem. You will need to know the amount in the Capital account.

The 31 Dec amount can be calculated by taking the number of shares issued times the per share price equals the capital amount. Now take your total capital amount minus the 31 Dec Capital amount equals the remaining Capital amount. Now take the remaining Capital amount and divide it by share price of R2 to get the total number of shares issued at the R2 price.

The 2,000,000 shares is the maximum number of shares that can be issued by the company and has no other purpose.