Cunard Planning £22m. Liner

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30635, 29 December 1964, Page 9

Cunard Planning £22m. Liner

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, December 28. The Cunard Line was on the verge of completing details with a Scottish shipbuilding firm to build the £22 million Q 4 passenger liner, the “Daily Mail” said today.

But both Cunard and the shipbuilders, John Brown and Company, were in a race against the clock because of the Government decision to implement a corporation tax, dated from next year and payable on January 1, 1966, the newspaper said. Up to Christmas Eve, staff of both Cunard and Brown’s were in constant negotiation

in a bid to satisfy Inland Revenue officials that a sum of more than £5 million was available as the Cunard stake. Without this assurance a Government loan of £17,600,000 to be made available over a 10-year period at 4| per cent interest, was being withheld, the “Daily Mail” said.

“Some experts believe that Brown’s, which built both the Queen Mary and • the Queen Elizabeth, have pared profits to the bone in the fight for the contract,” the newspaper said.