Vickers returns to higher profits

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33778, 26 February 1975, Page 12

Vickers returns to higher profits

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) MELBOURNE. Vickers Australia, Ltd. Melbourne engineer, has overcome its profit setback of recent years, and is expecting earnings growth.

The group net profit for 1 the year to December 31 jumped 87.0 per cent to $1,380,00, after an increase in tax provision from $280,000 to $1,430,000. The trading profit before tax and depreciation rose from sl.6m to $3.5m after a 61 per cent rise in group sales. Orders on hand at the end of the year were almost three times greater than previously, and further substantial orders had been received. The directors consider prospects for this year to be encouraging, and describe the improved profit as “timely,” in view of the cash demands of inflation, and the need to secure additional working capital from retained earnings. The interim dividend was raised from 3 per cent to 4 per cent, and the final divi-

dend has been raised from 5 per cent to 6 per cent. The 10 per cent (8 pei cent) annual dividend rate was well covered by an earning rate on capital, which rose from 11.2 per cent to 21.0 per cent. Excluded from the net profit is $480,000, which is the excess of insurance claims over the book value of fixed assets destroyed or lost in the Queensland floods in January, 1974. The tax provision is greater than the standard rate of 45 per cent because of $220,000 in non-allowable holiday pay, and long-service leave provisions, which is partly offset by a $120,000 benefit from carried forward tax losses in two subsidiaries.

Business personal Mr D. G. Hare, the general manager of the New Zealand Insurance, Ltd, and Mr R. K. Davison, Q.C., have been appointed directors of N.Z.I. to fill the vacancies caused by the recent deaths of Sir Woolf Fisher and Mr A. U. Wells. Mr Hare joined the company in 1946 and was appointed general manager at the Auckland head office in 1961. His appointment as director breaks a longstanding N.Z.I. tradition of not having an executive on the board. Mr Davison of Auckland, was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1963. He is chairman of Montana Wines, Ltd.