COLONIAL SUGAR CO.

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 204, 26 May 1938, Page 11

COLONIAL SUGAR CO.

Review Of Production

(Received May 25, 11.15 p.m.)

Sydney, May 25.

Addressing the half-yearly general meeting of the Colonial Sugar Refining Co., Ltd., the chairman, Mr. E. R. Knox, said Australia’s sugar production last season w r as a record.

The chairman added that the world prices of sugar at present were at a low level and the improvement expected as the result of the international agreement had not materialised, but the increased demand for the company’s distillery products has been well maintained.

Australia had produced 782,461 tons of raw sugar in the past season, compared with 756,131 in the previous year, of which 351,938 was retained for home consumption and the remainder exported. The returns for sugar exported were substantially higher than in recent years,* but there were largely offset by an 87 per cent, increase in overseas freight.

The report and balance-sheet were adopted. A special meeting of shareholders held later adopted a resolution for the substitution of a memorandum and of articles of association for the deed of settlement under which the company operates embracing a number of changes in the company’s practice and enabling the directors to sit on the board and vote when negotiations for contracts are proceeding with other companies in which they have interests.

The new articles provide for the holding of only one ordinary general meeting a year, to take (dace in May or June, instead of the practice of holding two meetings a year, in Maj’ and November. Another article provides that the directors’ total remuneration shall be £5OOO, instead of £2750 a year as fixed at present. Provision is also being made allowing the company to enter into contracts With directors or with any company in which a director is interested, either as a shareholder or as a director, and that, notwithstanding his interest, such director can vote on any such contract. The only other vital reform is the elimination'of restriction under the deed of settlement providing that no shares should be transferred to a married woman except jointly witli her husband. Apart from these provisions, the new articles will follow the relevant provision of the company’s present deed of settlement.