Firms In Merger Go Back To Early Days

Press, Volume C, Issue 29620, 16 September 1961, Page 7

Firms In Merger Go Back To Early Days

Dalgety and Company, Ltd., and the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, Ltd., the two stock and station firms involved in the proposed merger of which news was given early this week, have their roots set deep in the pioneering days of New Zealand and Australia.

The Dalgety organisation came to Canterbury not long after the First Four Ships. In September,. 1858. Richard Butler Dalgety, a brother of the founder of the firm, and George Buckley, trading as Dalgety, Buckley and Company, took over a section of land at Norwich quay. Lyttelton, with a store or shed on it. and three months later they were advertising that they were prepared to purchase wool or other colonial produce or to advance money on produce consigned to their connexions in England and Australia.

The founder of the Dalgety organisation was Frederick Gonnerman Dalgety, a Canadian, who went to Australia in 1833 at the age of 16. After only 13 years in various positions in merchant houses he embarked in business on his own account laying the foundations of the present company by forming the partnership of Dalgety, Borrodale, and Gore with premises in Melbourne. The young firm engaged in the importation of general produce and the export of wool and other agricultural products so that from the start the name of Dalgety has been identified with the wool industry. Mr Dalgety was involved in a host of partnerships in Australia and New Zealand before in 1884 they were converted into a limited liability company in the present name. From Victoria by degrees the Dalgety organisation extended to New South Wales, Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia, and to New Zealand at a time when the South Island was growing apace but the North was suffering from the impact of native troubles. It was natural that in the first instance Mr

Dalgety directed his attention to the South Island.

Africa, too, had not been overlooked as a possible field for expansion of the company’s operations and in 1901 its colonial superintendent visited that country. During the Boer War the company exported merchandise to South Africa and it was thought that connexions so established might be retained and developed, but it was found that taxation laws in respect of companies registered outoide the country were at that time too exacting for successful trading and the idea was abandoned. Twenty-six years later, however, the company turned its attention to this part of the world again and purchased the. business of W. C. Hunter and Company in Kenya. Branches In Australia the firm now has 11 main branches, 139 subbranches and 40 agencies; in New Zealand eight main branches and 42 subbranches and 64 agencies; and in East Africa six main branches and two agencies. The head office in London acts as broker for the disposal of meat at Smithfield and for grain and seeds and it has a stud stock officer on its staff. The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, L f d., was originally incorporated on April 6, 1865, and began business that year as produce, financial and commercial agents with the head office for the colony in Auckland and the registered office in London. About 1873 the operations of the company were extended to Australia.

From its inception until 1893 the company was a subsidiary of the Bank of New Zealand but in that year in the midst of a time of great financial stress in the country the company was reconstructed and the association with the bank ceased. In 1894 the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, Ltd., was incorporated having an authorised capital of £3.9m. By the end of the century the firm had 18 branches in the country including one at Blenheim, Christchurch, Lyttelton,

Rafcaia and Titnaru, and four branches in Australia with agents in other centres. Apart from being one of the main handlers of wool from New Zealand in the latter years of the last century, the firm played a prominent role in the establishment of the frozen meat trade from New Zealand. In a history of the trade published by Constable and Company in 1912 it was stated that the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency had played a very important part in the development of the natural resources of Australia and New Zealand, particularly in the frozen meat trade.

In 1880 when the s.s. Strathleven arrived in London with 40 tons of beef and mutton from Sydney, which had been frozen on board, one of the first to inspect the meat was the produce representative of the company in London and his sanguine comments on this shipment in the company's market report form the pioneer report on the frozen meat trade.

The first shipment of frozen meat to the company was made in 1881 when the company's London manager took a particular interest in introducing the meat to the public and stressing the importance of erecting refrigerated stores in Londo/i. In the same year the late Mr John Grigg, of Lcngbeach. consigned to the company some halfbred Shropshire wethers and lambs on the sailing ship, Dunedin. At the same time Mr Grigg and others were taking the first steps to establish the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company and to erect a freezing works at Belfast. One of the foundation directors of the company was Mr John Cooke, Christchurch manager of the Loan and Mercantile Agency. In 1885 the Loan company was successful in arranging for the inclusion of a lorry load of carcases of Canterbury mutton in the Lord Mayor’s show in London. A placard on the exhibit proclaimed that this was the meat of the future. The firm now has 18 man branches and 81 subbranches and agencies- in New Zealand and three main branches and 82 subbranches in Australia.