ENORMOUS LOSSES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 18 July 1923, Page 7

ENORMOUS LOSSES.

CAUSED BY DROP IN FREIGHTS

BY O>BIE—PRTIfS tRSOCJATION—COPTBIGHT Received July 18, 9.45 a.m.

LONDON, July 17

Enormous losses through the fall in freights have been divulged in the offi- : -icial receiver's report on the liquidation -of the Western Counties' Shipping Co., f :Ltd., Cardiff, incorporated in July, 1915, . with a capital of £10,000 and afterwards increased to £2,500,000. The •company in November, 1919, puchased a. motor line of thirteen steamers for £l,804;©00. In February, 1920, they --.agreed to buy the Sutherland line of eleven steamers for £1,825,000 and paid •a ten per cent, dividend next July, but; "by November were in difficulties owing ' to the sudden drop m freights. They , •could not.pay the insurance premiums' on the steamers, and eventually mort-! jgagees seized the Sutherland ships and •sold them for £266,000. The statement of affairs shows a. total deficit of £35,550.000 in regard to shareholders.— • Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.