COMPANY AFFAIRS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 1, 3 January 1927, Page 4

COMPANY AFFAIRS.

J. AND P. COATS. BIG FALL IN THE PROFIT. The accounts of J.,and P. Coats, Ltd., of Paisley, the great thread manufacturing firm, for the year ended June last, werfc submitted to the directors recently. The net profit, after writing down stocks and providing for an agreed settlement of the excess profits duty, was shown to have been 2,024,589, which represented a decline of £1,631,111 from the 1924-5 amount. A decline, however, was expected, as the company was bound to hold large stocks, and these must have depreciated heavily as a result of the steep fall in the cost of raw cotton. It is also important to notice that the excess profits duty payable has evidently been taken out of the year's profit, instead of the balance ■ brought forward, which was made exceptionally large for the express purpose of meeting this liability, as the directors openly stated. In 1923-24 the amount carried forward was £398,580. and a year ago it was raised to £1,145,030. Now it is reduced to £255,780. The directors decided to recommend a bonus on the ordinary shares of sixpence per share (2% per cent), making the total return for the year 17% per cent—the same as for each the last six years. A profit of £2,024,589 is not sufficient to pay this rate, and it necessitates part of the reduction in the balance forward. The bonus now proposed requires £368,750, which is included in the amount given above as being required for the ordinary dividend. The net profit reached £4,164,894 in 1919-20, in 1921-2 it was £3,270,913, and in 1922-3 £2,889,960. The results in the last three years are compared below:— 1925-6. 1924-5. 1923-4. £ £ £ >>et prpfit . . 2,024,(100 3,655.700 3,107,213 Brought fwd. 1,14.3,030 .•598,580 402 617 Available .. 3,107,030 4,054,280 3,509 803 To reserve.. — — 200,000 Pref. divd... 330,000 330,000 330,000 Ord. divd 2,581,250 2,581,250 2,581 250 Ditto p.c. 17i 17 J 17J Carried fwd. 255,780 1,143,030 308,580 GOODYEAR TYRE CO. The Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company (Australia), Ltd., proposes to estabhah a large factory in Isew South Wales. The capital is £1,200,000 in shares of £1 each, of which 300,000 are 8 per cent cumulative preference shares, to be offered for public subscription. Five hundred thousand ordinary shares will be subscribed for and paid up in cash by the Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company, of Akron, Ohio, Lrated States. The remaining 400,000 ordinary shares will be held in reserve. It is provided that any new issue of shares which may be made shall consist whollvordinary, or partly of ordinary and partly of preference shares, without creating a new class of preference shares, and without reducing the protection which the original preference shares possess. The object is to buy from the Goodyear lyre and Rubber Company of Australasia, Ltd., a distributing subsidiary company, the whole of its business in Australia. An option has been secured ove* a block of twenty acres at Granville, near fcjdney, where a modern building will be erected, and it is expected that the plant will be operating in twelve months. The +hI e j?i w S om P any i\ as agr , eed to guarantee the dividends on the preference shares for two years to January 1, 1929. The directors are Messrs. James Kell, the retiring governor of the Commonwealth Bank n^n 1 "? Paul W. Litchfield (chairman of the Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company of America), and Mr. William G Aitner (managing director of the Goodvear lyre and Rubber Company of Australasia. J he preference issue has been underwritten.