INDUSTRIAL INVESTMENTS.

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 August 1932, Page 10

INDUSTRIAL INVESTMENTS.

in the “World’s Press News” of May 26 last, it is stated: It has been left to the gas industry to break down the prejudice which has far tod long existed here against co-operative financial publicity, advertisements which have heed issued recently by the British Commercial Gas Association marking a new phase in British advertising. One appeared a week or so ago, calculated to interest investors in gaa stocks. “For those who wish to place money with assurance of a secure return,” it read, “there is no more attractive investment than gas stock.”

This type of utility advertising inaugurated by the gas industry has a vital significance. Not only does it read as convincing proof of the growing popularity of gas, but it also makes the gas consumer “stock minded,” thus increasing public interest in gas company securities and raising the basis of their credit: It will mean in the end, if consistently and wisely pursued, that gas companies in this country will be able to raise capital on more favourable terms than they have done in the past, since the response on the part of the public to a new issue of stock will have been stimulated in advance. People will have ’ come to realise that there are other sources than National Savings Certificates and Conversion Loan for the safe employment of their, savings. To look fux> thex - ahead, it is clear that the raising of a gas company’s credit will enable its production costs to be lowered. The less the annual charge on earnings fox - stock interest, the greater the amount of divisible net profit, and the more margin exists fox - a reduction in the basic price of gas to consumers.