On December 31, 1939 the liquid assets of the Java and Shanghai companies combined exceeded the e cash liabilities by Ch.$ 442,407.42 and, if you pass the dividend now recommended, the companies will start the mew year with a combined surplus of liquid assets amounting to Ch.$287,- 10742, During the year your directors decided that in view of the uncertainty the future trend of the value of the Chinese Dollar the prudent thing to do was to dispose of our local investments and to convert any surplus that was not required for the payment of the interim dividends into United States currency. A similar procedure was adopted with any surplus funds that accumulated in Java and you will see from the balance sheet that on December 31, 1939 the company had the sum of US, Dollars 7439.78 at the Bank. The Chinese Dollar equivalent of this sum at today's rate of exchange is approximately Ch.$124,- 000.00 or Ch.$28,771.00 in excess of the figure shown in the balance sheet, In conclusion, Gentlemen, I would like to express our best thanks to the two managers, their staffs, the visiting agent and the agents in Java for the very satisfactory manner in which they have administered the Estates during the period under review.
There is just one last point that I should like to take this opportunity of touching upon, although it does not directly affect the affairs of this company, and. that is that there seems to be a fairly general impression amongst the investing public that this year my firm is very much behindhand in presenting the annual accounts of the various companies in our agency, That this is not really the case however, is shown by the following figures of the number of meetings held before the end of April by companies under our management, and this year we will have held 8 meetings before the end of this month. This number would have been appreciably larger had we not been held back by the unavoidable delay in the receipt of certain essential documents from the Straits and Java. In some cases we still cannot prepare the final accounts either through the non-receipt of the audited accounts or of the manager's annual reports.
The responsibility for this delay does not lie with the agents in the south as we are in receipt of advice that they were posted in good time, but owing to the exigencies of the European war the number of ships available for the carrying of mails is temporarily very muck reduced.
I can assure you that no avoidable delay occurs at this end but, owing to the enormous number of transfers of shares that is taking place and the clerical work involved thereby there is a limit to the number of meetings that we can hold in any given time. manat the directors' report and state-December 31 cent dividend of t per share be rat, making a total of thirty cents per share for the year, by Mr, A. J. Welch ata Seconded by ME REM. Swann.
That a donation of Ch.$1,500.00 be Proposed Mr. A. J. Welch and made to the Central British War Fund.
warm.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.