A TIMBER COMPANY'S TROUBLES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8281, 11 May 1907, Page 6

A TIMBER COMPANY'S TROUBLES.

Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, May 10. His Honor Justice Cooper was engaged to-day hearing the petition of Mrs Jane Holden Mathews, of Hampden, Hawke's Bay, John Pettit, of Dannevirke, and Ernest Albert Barton, of Feilding, for the winding up of the Hawke's Bay Timber Company. The grounds of application were that the company was unable to pay its debts, that accommodation had been granted various persons without consideration or in excess of what was due by the company, that payments in anticipation of dividends had not been repaid or accounted for, that the company's mills were over-valued on the company's books, that there were £10,636 bad debts on the books of the company, that the book value of the properties had been written up by £13,288, and the increase treated as profit. Further, petitioners allege that the company was unable to carry on business, and the only persons who would benefit by the company continuing to carry on business were Fritz Jensen, who was] receiving a substantial salary as managing director, and other persons who were receiving or had received accommodation from the company.

Fritz Jensen, managing director, was called and cross-examined. He declared that all the financial proceedings had been perfectly straightforward, and that the company's position was absolutely good.

The reading of the affidavits had not concluded when the Court adjourned.