The 42nd annual general meeting of the Shanghai Waterworks Ca., Ld., was held at the head office of the company, No. 67 Kiangse Road, yesterday afternoon. Mr. Leslie J. Cubitt presided and was supper! ed by Messrs. A. W. Burkill, C. S, Mackie, and H. M. Little (Dir-actors), F. B. Piteairn, Engineer-in-Chief and Manager, and W. R. Walter, Secretary. The attendance represented 11,167 shares.
In the course of his address to those present, the Chairman made reference in detail to the year's working and to the report and statement of accounts, but pressure on our space enables only to give brief extracts from an excellent survey. These are as follow The Report and: Accounts for the year ended December 31, 1921, are the least satisfactory from a financial point of view that I have had to lay before you since I have been connected with the Company as in spite of an increase of just over 20 per cent. in the quantity of water delivered to consumers the nett profit for the year is only Tls. 275,463.90 (including a profit of over Ts. 24,000 on the sale of War Loan) against Ts. 371,865.47 a decrease of Tls. 96,399.57, or 25.9 per cent. We are thus unable to maintain the usual rate of dividend and but for the assistance of the equalization of dividend fund we should not be in a position to pay even the small return which I am about to recommend. The revenue is more than last year by Tls. 117,558.66, but. against this the expenditure shews an increase of Ts. 104,687.64, leaving the working profit benefited to the extent of Ts. 12,871.02 only, while items chargeable to Profit and Loss Account have increased from Tls. 127,719.61 to Tls. 263,016.37, due
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.