Industrial Chemicals still doing well

Press, 22 July 1976, Page 18

Industrial Chemicals still doing well

P A Auckland: Industrial Chemicals (N.Z.)! Ltd sales for the first quar-l ter of its current year were! 11 per cent ahead of the same period of 1975, but costs would be correspondingly higher, the managing director, (Mr F. K. Brown) told the annual meeting. Earlier, the chairman (Mr A M. Hughes) in a supplementary statement to his re-1 view, said costs caused by I the Government regulations] governing milk, bread, pet-; roi, transport, power, and; other charges were having effect now, in reducing consumer spending. Nevertheless. the directors expected 1976-77 to be another good year. Mr Brown noted that transport is a very big item in Industrial Chemicals’ business. He anticipated that could add up to $30,000 to the costs this year, but emphasis was being placed on ' dealing with this problem. He said: “We are a company which has never had a lot of ’fat’ and do not have much room to trim down.

So we must put the effort;’ into increasing sales.” The company would, hei said, miss out on a complete! recovery of costs. Mr Hughes in his statement indicated that the company and its associate, Chemical Cleaning, Ltd, of! Mt Maunganui, this year, would be making a more determined effort to hold their markets, particularly for cosmetics, by making more use of the laboratory resources. A shareholder commented that if the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) did not give companies incentive to improve their business then he was net adopting the policy he should in the interests of] New Zealand. As reported, Industrial Chemicals made a record profit of $151,511 (excluding its share in associated companies) on record sales of $3,392,428 for 1975-76. The figures for the previous year I were $111,013 and: $2,372,870. Ihe annual divi-l dend was raised with Government approval to 15 per cent or 7.5 c, and was covered 3.3 times.