Directors’ Fees

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31321, 17 March 1967, Page 10

Directors’ Fees

Sir, —On reading the report of the annual meeting of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company I see that the chairman of directors moved a resolution that the directors’ fees be increased to £7500 per annum. This motion was subsequently passed. It seems to me that in a year when the farmers have been paid a lower lamb price by the freezing companies than for many years, and at a time when New Zealand’s economy is going through a difficult phase this is surely a very tactless time for such a move. The Prime Minister has appealed to the country to try to peg wages and has set an example by not raising M. n .s’ salaries this year. Could not the directors of thL company have foregone their salary increase likewise?—Yours, etc., F.C.A. March 10, 1967.

[The chairman of directors of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company, Ltd. (Mr C. S. Peate), replies: “The matter was a domestic one for consideration by the stock-, holders of the company who had three weeks’ notice of the proposed resolution. At the annual general meeting the reasons for the increase were fully explained and discussed. The stockholders, on a show of hands, passed the resolution by an overwhelming majority.”]