The ninth annual general meeting of the shareholders in the above Company was held at the offices of the Company, No. 33b, Nanking Road, on Tuesday afternoon. There were present: Messrs. A. McLeod (Chairman), H. J. Such, Chas. Rayner, and Walter Schiirff, Directors; James M. Young, W. P. Lambe, Frank Gove, Zeen Kow-chee, Yung Kee, shareholders;-and Mr. H. Wenek, secretary.
The secretary having read the notice convening the meeting, The Chairman said The report and accounts for the past year having been in your hands for some time, I presume you will permit us to dispense with the formality of reading them, but before proposing a resolution asking you to adopt and pass the accounts I shall be pleased to make a few explana tory remarks regarding them. I think, that taking into consideration the con ditions under which the Mill was worked during 1903, the results obtained must be considered very satisfactory, for as you are aware from what was said at the last annual mesting, it was decided to increase the capacity of the mill by some-ike fifty per cent by the erection of additional machinery in the existing buildings, for which purpose and for increasing our godown accommodation it was decided to issue the remaining Taels 100,000 of the authorised capital of the Company. With view of keping the well known Brands of our Flour, Bran, etc., in the market during the period the Mill was necessarily closed for the above alterations and additions, the Directors deemed it advisable to hold sufficient stocks to meet the usual demand, and although, through the fact of a considerable decline in the price of wheat having taken place in the spring of the year, this stock had to be realised at figures showing little or no profit on cost of production, the principal object of the Directors was successfully attained in keeping our products in the market and preventing our regular dealers going elsewhere for their supplies. 'The Mill was entirely shut down durin; the second quarter of last year, and resumed working about the middle of Tuly, since which date it has been running' continuously in a very satisfactory manner, the output being about 2,000 bags of 50 Ibs. per 24 hours, as against an estimated capacity of 1,800 bags originally calculated upon. Profit and Loss account. The balance of working account transferred to Or. of Profit and Loss account is Tls. 55,744.58 and as this amount has been catned in less that six months, namely between the 15th July and 3ist December 1903, we are of opinion that you will consider this result eminently satisfactory. The fact that the profits forthe past year were all made during the latter half of it is the reason that both old and new shares participate equally in the dividend of 12 per cent now recommended to be paid, the new shares having been issued on terms which made them rank pari pass with the old shares from Ist July 1903. The figures of the Balance Sheet call for but little! comment; Buildings on 31st December 1902 stood in our books at Tls. 52,000. On account of the large new Flour and! Wheat godowns erected during the year the sum of Tls. 29,340.22 has been paid and the final payment of Tls. 4,000 is due} shortly.
Machinery, Plant, ote.—The Book value of our plant on 3ist December 1902 was Tls. 84,000 from which amount it is now proposed to write off 10 per cent or Tls. 8,400 while the cost of the additional machinery, including erection and complete overhaul of all the milling Machinery Steam Power Plant, et., wasTs. 55,647.12, all of which has been paid for and appears in the accounts.
Stocks—With regard to our stocks which stand in the Balange Sheet at Tls. 120,440.09, we have hat no difficulty in arriving at a correct valuation, all the fiqur having been sold for forward delivery, the sale prices less interest to due dates of the respective contracts forming the basis of valuation while wheat has been taken at cost price, which was below the current rate at the date of the report.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that buildings, machinery, plant, and property all stand' in our books at figures very much below replacing cost. The other items of our assets require, I think, no comment.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.