Firth sales helped by acquisitions

Press, 5 July 1978, Page 18

Firth sales helped by acquisitions

PA Auckland Sales by Firth Industries, Ltd, in the three months to June, at $5,074,000, were running 33 per cent ahead of the corresponding previous quarter, the deputy chairman (Mr P. R. Blomkamp) told the annual meeting in Auckland. However, $1,294,000 or 25.5 per cent of the revenue was from subsidiaries acquired since last year. Mr Blomkamp restated that the building industry still was severely depressed, and would “continue this way for a good while yet.” Nevertheless, Firth hoped that the effects of recent Government measures would help increase sales in the farming area, both directly and indirectly.

“We want to reduce our dependency on the building

industry, and our entry into the road-paving and roadsealing business is proving successful. Both Waikato Bitumen, and Reliable Roads are well managed, profitable businesses and their futures seem assured. “We are exploring other avenues of diversification, but we will not diversify merely for the sake of diversification,” Mr Blomkamp said. The source of tax-free dividends, the share premium reserve, was now exhausted. In common with many other companies, Firth deplored the taxing of company profits, and shareholders’ dividends “so that ultimately only about 25 per cent of the company profit is untaxed.” Fletcher Holdings, Ltd,

now owns about 33 per cent of the Firth capital, but Fletcher involvement had not altered the direction Firth would take in the future, said Mr Blomkamp. Mr Blomkamp presided over the meeting in the absence of the new chairman (Mr B. J. Paterson), who is in England managing the New Zealand cricket team. Mr Paterson, for many years the legal adviser of the company, was appointed to the board last year, and was elected deputy- chairman. The co-founder of the company, and its previous chairman, Mr E. B. Firth, died on May 6. Details of the scholarship being endowed in Mr Firth’s honour were still being worked out, Mr Blomkamp said.