The dissident and the directors

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33929, 23 August 1975, Page 18

The dissident and the directors

(New Zealand Press Association—Copyright)

AUCKLAND. Colour television may have been good for Bell Radio-Television Holdings, Ltd, — profit was up by 26 per cent in the latest year — but its success has brought the directors into further conflict with a dissident shareholder, Mr J. J. Rosser.

Mr Rosser and the chairman (Mr A. P. S. Bell) came into frequent, and at times heated, argument at the annual meeting yesterday over Bell’s dividend policy. During one exchange, the chairman told Mr Rosser that he was “not going to have the thing turned into a Gilbert and Sullivan opera.” Mr Rosser told the meeting that the 17.5 per cent paid this year was a “very miserable” return, because the capital structure of the company was grossly out of balance. “Shareholders have a right to expect a return not only on their capital, but also on accumulated reserves,” he said. "When we compare the dividend paid of $149,670 to shareholders’ funds of $3,140,088, we can see that the return to in 1975 is only 4.7 per cent dividend on funds,” he said. In the latest year, the share of profits distributed had fallen from 33.5 per

cent of earnings to only 30 per cent, said Mr Rosser, although the average distribution of profits by other New Zealand companies for the last five years had been more than 50 per cent. He suggested that the dividend this year should have been not less than 36 per cent in order to remedy the amount "short distributed” last year. Mr Bell replied that the company should be compared with similar-size companies in similar industries. Two other companies in the electrical industry of similar size and shareholdings to Bell had distributed 31.3 per cent and 26.7 per cent of profits by way of dividends. The Bell average distribution over the last five years had been 42.9 per cent, the chairman said.