Annual General Meeting: Optimistic Speech by Chairman 'The Fifteenth Annual General' Meeting of the shareholders of the Samagaga Rubber Ca, Ld, was libeld last Friday afternoon at the head office of the company, 35 Peking Road. Mr. Leslie J. Cubitt and there were also present Messrs. A. K. Craddock and E. Samson (directors), and Mr. D. M. Butt (representa ting the secretaries), and other shareholders, who represented 90,650 shares.
Mr. Butt having road the notice convening the meeting and the a tors! report the Chairman said:—
Gentlemen, I cannot enter upon' the business of this meeting without T and my colleagues on the board and I feel sure I may add the whole body of shareholders, feel at the through death, of Mr. Grayrigge. He took the keenest intereat. in this company. with which hho had been associated since its You will note that the par value of our investments has been brought up to the amount of our general reserve and I am_asking you later on to authorize the transfer of a further Tls. 5,000 from profit and loss account which it is proposed to invest also. The directors favour the investment of some portion of future savings in sterling or Straits currency and it is hoped that the current year may enable a beginning to be made in that direction.
We brought forward from last. year a sum equal to 5 per cent. on the capital and hay earned 16 per cent. this year.
By recommending a final dividend of only 7 per cent. making 17 per cent. for the year, your directors have continued the conservative policy which ha hitherto had your support. an which they believe will again meet with your approval. Although the development acount has in years past been heavily depreciated it still fands at too high @ figure and it is proposed to write off a further Tls. 5,000 from the profits of the Tisiae te earn year just ended, leaving Tis. inception and would have rejoiced today at its prosperity which he had so much at heart.
Since I addressed you last year about this time the promise of the Stevenson Scheme for the rebabilitation of the rubber growing industry has been more than fulfilled. The raw article which at that time was selling at auction at round about 60 cents a Ib. now finds ready buyers at nearly three times that figure and in the opinion of those presumably best qualified to judge, there is every prospect of remunerative prices being obtained for the! next year or two unless something quite unforeseen occurs.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.