U.E.B. Aims High In Wool Industry

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31028, 6 April 1966, Page 21

U.E.B. Aims High In Wool Industry

Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND. April 5. United Empire Box Company intended to undertake a major and sustained entry into the woollen manufacturing field with a particular desire to increase New’ Zealand exports of woollen tops and basic woollen yarns and textiles, the company announced today.

To do this, it had acquired ownership of Napier Woollen Mills and New Zealand Combing Development Company, and was seeking full ownership of Ross and Glendining and Steeles Carpet Industries (in which U.E.B. already has a controlling interest). It was intended that these four companies would be reorganised as a division of U.E.8., and their activities rationalised and co-ordinated to allow U.E.B. entry into the following principal fields:—

The processing of raw greasy wool into finished tops for export and local sale;

The production of a wide variety of woollen yarns; The production of basic textile piecegoods, including blankets and carpets, with particular emphasis on export sales as well as meeting local demand.

The chief production units of the new division, located at Dunedin, Napier and Auckland, would be considerably strengthened. A big quantity of the world’s latest manufacturing machinery and equipment was already under option from overseas suppliers. The chairman and manag-ing-director of U.E.8., Mr J. N. C. Doig, believed that “the future will be exciting and the prospects brilliant” for the new division. He thought that the lessons of rationalisation and concentration which the U.E.B. group had learned in its growth from tax-paid profits of £II,OOO to £450,000 in 10 years would have a direct relevance to the way in which the new division’s activities would be welded together and managed. He anticipated that the rate of profitability of the new division would be on a par with that of the U.E.B. group’s other divisions by the end of the 1966-67 financial year, and that within two years its rate of profitability would almost certainly exceed that of the other divisions. Present U.E.B. turn-over is

'running at the rate of £l2m la year. “Our move into the woollen field is very much influenced by the fact that wool is one of the few basic raw materials in which the company can involve itself without restraint or control of any kind." he said. The woollen industry is one of the very few industries where raw materials are available in quantity and not subject in any way to import licensing. "It is also a government protected industry characterised by numerous plants producing a diverse range of goods on an all-too-frequentiy uneconomic basis." In the export field. U.E.B. already had prospective customers for certain of the new division’s products. A major export investigation and sale promotion drive ■would be launched.