PAYMENT SUSPENDED

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 25 August 1931, Page 5

PAYMENT SUSPENDED

PRIMARY PRODUCERS’ BANK

ANOTHER N.S.W. INSTITUTION

PREJUDICE OF FORMER CRASH

fjr.iteii Press Association —By Electric Telegraph Copyright.)

SYDNEY, Aug. 24

The Primary Producers'’ Bank of Australia, Limited, with headquarters at Sydney and branches in other States, suspended payment as from to-day. Shareholders are to lie recommended to place the bank in voluntary liquidation. The chairman of directors, Mr H. Sehweiger, announced tonight. that if the bank’s securities rc:7liised anything like the bank’s valuation every depositor should ultimately receive :20s in the £l.

The bank, which was established in 1923, encountered unprecedented difficulties, accentuated by the pronounced fall in the values of wheat and o T hor primary produce, a marked reduction m security values such as country lands, the necessity of maintaining advances to farmers coupled with is tea dOy dbcliniiig 'deposits, the lack of adequate capital, and tlio inability to obtain ' temporary accpininodatroir or to amalgamate ivith any other iinanci.il institution, w'hile most of the hank’s clients were unable to reduce rh* ir indebtedness =in the slightest degree. There was no alternative, added ’ Mr. Sehweiger, hut to close the bank s doors. The hank’s paid-up capital w an £439401. Deposits at the latest bala neesheet (February) amounted to £ E4sT*.845. Assets totalled £2,102,443, ot which bills, discounted loans advances and other assets accounted tor £1,592,315. The bank held £376,086 in’liquid assets, including £37,890 m cash, £92,000 at short call, and £140.678 in Commonwealth bonds. Air. Sehweiger added that his bank had been seriously prejudiced by the closing of the New’ South Wales Savings Bank.