COMMERCIAL COMPANY NEWS

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 July 1946, Page 9

COMMERCIAL COMPANY NEWS

Aluminium Utensils. —A profit 01 £7123 before providing for taxation, £4650, and goodwill written oft £lOOO, was earned by Aluminium Utensils, Ltd., Auckland, for the year ended April 30. Last year the profit was £3846 before taxation 01 £1960, and a transfer of £5OO to reserve. Preference and ordinary dividends, raised from 6 per cent, to 71 per cent., and a Victory bonus ol 24 per cent., against 11 Per cent, bonus last year, require £l6OO Carry-forward is reduced by £l2 to £4BB. Gross profit ol £17,081 compares with £10,045, while expenses are £3532 higher at £924.). Depreciation is £ 140 higher at £lll6 The directors report that the improved supply of aluminium from overseas resulted in an increased output. Capital had been increased by £4537 to £16,000, and the company had been listed by the New Zealand Stock Exchange British Tobacco. —The directois of the British Tobacco Company (Australia) Ltd., have declared a dividend on issued preference shares at the rate of 61 per cent per annum lor the three months ending July 31, payable on July 31. —(P.A.) I C I. Dividend. —The directors or Imperial Chemical Industries of Australia and New Zealand, Ltd., have declared a dividend of 21 per cent, for the half-year ending July 31, 1946. on 5 per cent, pre erence shares, payable on July 31. —(P-A.) AUSTRALIAN COMPANY PROFITS SHOW DECLINE

Australian company net profits, after providing her taxation, arc lower, in the aggregate, than a year a o-o. The 1945 profits of 577 companies represent 5.9 per cent, of shareholders’ funds against 6 per cent, a year earlier and 6.8 per cent, in 1939, according to a compilation in the Commonwealth Bank statistical bulletin. . . ' Though the group mining and primary production shows an increase, pastoral profits, which are included, arc well down. An increase in the’ distribution group is due wholly to retail profits. Amusements and hotels and restaurants contributed largely to the increase in the services group. Most classes of manufacturing disclosed lower profits, the main exceptions being in the building industries. Net profits of steel and heavy engineering declined, though those of other metals and machinery improved. - The companies included for any year are those whose balance-sheets are dated within that year, and figures for 1945 would include some published in recent* rhohths.