CABLEMAKER SAYS WORK UNECONOMIC

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31983, 9 May 1969, Page 6

CABLEMAKER SAYS WORK UNECONOMIC

The sale price for some of his company’s lines was pegged by the Prices Division to a fictitious copper price more than $lOO below the current cost, the chairman of Associated British Cables (Mr A. T. Young) said this week.

He told the Christchurch company’s annual meeting in Auckland that the division prevented a fair return on shareholders’ funds and made A. B. Cables’ position “quite uneconomic.” Referring to the company’s copper purchases for the manufacture of general wires and cables, Mr Young said that the company used thousands of tons of this metal each year and had to contend with daily price fluctuations. Last year, it moved between £432 and £Bl6 on the London Metal Exchange. The highest

price for copper this year was £614 and the current price was £5BB. “In our bread and butter lines we are still subject to price control, but we have always endeavoured to maintain a stable price for our finished products by averaging out fluctuations,” he said. It was important to realise that no question of monopoly arose. There were five manufacturers in the New Zealand cable industry with a considerable surplus capacity, and in most lines there was intense competition. The chairman said also that the improvement in sales noted in his annual report had continued for the first four months of the current year. “Turnover is improving.” he said, “and provided we are allowed to achieve a reasonable margin of profit, improved results should be possible."