WAIKATO FARMERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 67, 18 March 1916, Page 9

WAIKATO FARMERS.

TEE AUCnOItEEBUfG COMPACT A GOOD YEAR. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON", this day. The annual meeting of the Waikato Farmers' Auctioneering Company was held to-day. The chairman, in his annual report, said: — "It gives mc great pleasure to meet oar shareholders and have to report j another successful year. Business in both the stock and produce department has increased. Our profits for the year are £27,477, Vfhieh your directors propose to allocate as follows: To pay a dividend of 16 per cent on preference shares, £920; to I pay a dividend of 8 per cent on ordinary I shares, £11,665: to refund 20 per cent on commissions from stock and auction sales, and 2J per cent on purchases made by shareholders through the produce dejpartment, £7,536; totalling £20,121. It I will thus be seen that we propose to disI tribute nearly three-quarters of the profits amongst the shareholders in divijdends and rebates. We propose to place i £6,000 to reserves, which, without the ,£5,000 we paid for goodwill, will now stand at £43,800. The paid-up capital of the company is £104,735. The reserve funds and the paid-up capital together now amount to over £208,000, all of which is invested in the business, and I gives stability to the company. We proj pose, as usual, to give the staff a bonus , this year, which will amount to £540. i The directors had inaugurated a superannuation eciiemc tor employees by !an initial donation of £300, and would : annually contribute a subsidy equal to I two-thirds of the aggregate contributions Jot the employees. Benefits would deipend on the age of employees joining the j fund, and on the rate of wage or salary I received. I "Reviewing the business as a whole.' , J the chairman continued, "we have eau-e Ito congratulate ourselves on its proj gross; each year it has increaeed. Since Iwe started, nine years ago. we have paid out over £00,000 in dividends and bonuses, neurly all of which has been distributed in the Waikato and surrounding districts. If the farmers had not started this company I believe nearly the whole of it would have been paid to shareholders out of New Zealand." Speaking of employees who had goni , to '"the front." the chairman said: — i""They are all still members of our stall. ! and during their abaonce are receiving half-pa}', which amounted last year to jover £1,000. Wo propose to continue to pay our absent staff, and to give them F hoarty welcome and our best thanks jon their return. The company last year donated £800 to the Wounded Soldiers' Fund and £100 to the Belgian Fund. It al-so cold 6t»ck and produce to the value of over £8,000 and collected the money free of charge for the Wounded Soldiers' Fund." The report was adopted.