SYDNEY HOTELS' LOSSES

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 76, 31 March 1931, Page 12

SYDNEY HOTELS' LOSSES

Operations of Manly Hotel, Ltd., Sydney,' for the year ended 31st December resulted in a loss of £883; which compares, with a net profit of £1763 in 1929. Profit on trading account fell from £3079 to £461. The loss reduces ~the- credit balance of £4690 brought forward to £3813 to be carried forward. Last year 5 per cent, dividend was paid, this year nil.

Addressing shareholders at the annual meeting of Hotel Sydney, Ltd., well known to New Zealand visitors to Sydney, the chairman of directors (Sir Arthur Rickard) slated that there had been a slight but definite improvement in.the business of the hotel during January and February of this year, when compared with the corresponding months of 1930. Unless something unforeseen should happen, he added, he did not expect that the position of the company would be any worse at the end of the present half-year than at the end of the last, when a. small loss was incurred. The present slump, Sir Arthur. continued, had affected hotels as much, if not more, than any other class of business. Every effort had been made *io curtail expenses, but certain charges, euch as rates and taxes and insurance premiums, which were fixed, constituted a heavy overhead charge which had to be met. Shareholders reduced the auditors' remuneration from £175 to £150 per an•Mim.