Slee be, and are hereby re-elected auditors to the company for the current financial year at muneration of Tls. 150.00, Proposed by Sir Elly Kadoorie and seconded by Mr. E, F, Harris, Gordon & Ca.
'The annual general meeting of Gordon & Com Ltd, was held on April 11 at the Company's offices, 137 Szechuen Road, the attendance representing 8,461 shares, Mr, C. M,' Bain presided, the other directors present. being Mi A.D, Bell and Mr. J. R. Moodi Mr, Bain's speech was as follows:
The report and accounts having been circulated in the usual way, I will, with your permission, take them as read.
The directors' report, as also the auditors' certificate, are without qualification, and, therefore, call for no special comment, For your information, I would say that no further shares have been issued, 1am pleased to be able to present to you a balance sheet which presents a very satisfactory trading result for the past 12 months, In this connection, T would like to say that the remark is frequent ly pussed to me, in connection with this company's' affairs, that with the immense amount of building operation at present going on in this city, this company should be doing rather well, but when. one really understands the other side of the picture, first impressions a obviously erroneous. There would be nothing simpler than for this company to obtain an immense amount of heating, ventilating, and plumbing work atthe present time in Shanghai; but your directors consistently adopt the principle that work must result not only in reasonable profits, but must be done:
that it is satisfactory to the' client and a credit to the firm which installs the work. These considerations, therefore, rule out a Large quantity of work which ea not possibly be done satisfactorily at some of the prices which are offered, There still remains, however, a Jarge amount of business that this company has successfully competed for, and of which we have secured our fair share, In my last speech to you, T ted you to believe that the year' which now. passed would be reasonably successful; and T hope, after having: perused the accounts, you will agree that this is 80, The days of large profits have gone for ever; but we expect to be able to take our place among the successful companies of this town, for many yours to come, as, not only have we the confidence of our clients, bat our staff is well train requirements, ed, capable, and understands, local
Turning to the balance sheet, you may have noticed that our sundry. debtors are much higher than last year, This is due to a large amount of our contract work bee coming chargeable towards the end of the year; but I am pleased to be able to say that considerably more that Tait this amount has already been collected, Our stock is just slightly higher than last year, and is, if anything, rather less than should be carried; out the present low exchange does not encourage the increasing of stock for general purposes, Our investments are taken into the balance sheet at cost, as in previous years; but their actual value, at the present time, is cone siderably higher.
Our reserves are in a satisfactory. condition and represent appoxicapital mately 80 per cent, on the paid up
During the past year we have completed quite a number of now lidings, among which are the new Deanery, the Central Aveade, the Sharebrokers' Building, the Bijow Apartments, extensions to Marble Hall, the new Pichon Telephone Ex+
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.