The seventeenth annual general meeting of this company was held at Basildon House, Moorgate, London, E.C., on May 30, Sir Alfred Dent, K.c.M.G.,_ presiding. The secretary (Mr. L. W. Hawkins) having read the notice convening the meeting and the auditors' report, The Chairman said:
The operating profit, at £96,998, shows an increase of £3,918 as compared with the preceding year. The principal variations in other sources of profit are an improvement in the profit on exchange from £15,765 to £17,160. On the other hand, interest and dividends have fallen from £5,230 to £2,286, not only by reason of the lower rate earned by bank deposits, but also beewse during a considerable part of the preceding year we held cash balances and securities which were ultimately used to pay Excess Profits Duty. The profit on realization of investments was £1,209, as compared with £3,391, and this is an item which cannot, of course, be relied on as a source of income. The net result of the several variations is a profit of £113,299, as compared with £112,945, giving us the slight advantage of £354. As regards appropriations, the board thought it wise to increase the reserve for renewals from £10,000 to £50,000, which is not greatly in excess of the actual expenditure on_re-newels during the year. This appropriation raises the reserve for renewals to £94,314, which is aqua] to nearly 20 per cent. on the construction expenditure account. An appropriation of £5,000, being the estimated liability to Corporation Profits Tax. has also been made, and the sum of £2,531 has been allocated to the staff pro-evident fund, the nature of which was explained in my speech of a year ago. After making these appropriations there remains a balance of profit sufficient to permit of a final dividend of 8 per cent., making 20 per cent. for the year, and of increasing the carry forward from £6,261 to £17,029.
SUBSIDARY COINAGE, An increasingly serious factor affecting the profit-earning capasity of the company is the loss by depreciation on subsidiary coinage, which rose to £139,757, calculated at 2s. to the dollar. There is, unfortunately, no indication during the current year of any improvement in the percentage of loss, but reference is made in the directors' report to a hope of counteracting the loss, and beyond assuring you that this reference was made advisedly, it is undesirable that I should state the form which it is hoped the relief will take.
The reference which has been made in the report from year to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.