CALLED ON TO RESIGN

Northern Advocate, 7 December 1935, Page 8

CALLED ON TO RESIGN

KAITAIA DAIRY DIRECTORS ROWDY GENERAL MEETING £6OOO LOST TO COMPANY? i Special to. “Northern AavocateJ’l , KAITAIA, This Day. Since the election of three new members and the appointment of Mi Vernon Reed as chairman, m place of Mr C. B. Michie, to the board ox directors fof the Kaitaia Dairy Company there have . been two distinct parties on the board and differences had become so serious that, on a requisition signed by a large number of suppliers, an extraordinary general meeting of suppliers was held yesterday to consider the position. Over 400 attended, and feeling ran high between the two factions. The meeting was, at times, noisy and disorderly, but the speakers on both sides were given fair hearing. The main charge against those in control was. that by failing to take advantage of f.o.b. offers for butter over £6OOO had been lost to the suppliers and \there were counter-charges against the old regime. 1 After about four hours of dis-

cussion, a resolution was passed by 180 votes to 42 calling upon the

. whole of the directors to resign. The text of the resolution was: “That the board of directors should be called on to resign from office, as the board, as it is at present constituted, does not enjoy the confidence of the shareholders.” Three New Directors.

' At the election of three directors of the company in August, three new -directors, were returned —Messrs D. Parker, V. H. Reid and J. A. Berghan—and these, with Mr D. H. Lewis, a member of the board, who had been opposed to the policy of the past directors, constituted a majority of the , board. • The chairmanship of the company went to.Mr Reed, and the committees appointed were all new members. It is claimed that the new directors reversed' the policy, pursued by the previous board,- especially in regard to the sale of butter.

The shareholders became very restlive about this matter and they decided to find out exactly what other' shareholders thought. For this reason a petition was circulated among shareholders requesting that an extraordinary general meeting cf the company should be held to discuss the position thoroughly, so that a resolution for some sort of action should be considered. One of the older members of the board, Mr T. H. Kenny, who was the first speaker, in reviewing, the policy of the new directors in the disposal of the company’s output, gave figures to show that a loss of £6643 had been incurred during the two months, from the middle of September to the middle of November. The butter for which f.o.b. offers of l2§d per lb had been received, he said, was later sold on consignment -at ll|d, and other lots, for which. 1/2 to V%\ could have been secured, were sold at from lOfi'd to 12 l-10d per lb. The dairy company’s agreement with a lime company for the erection of lime .works in, the district and the supply of lime to the .county on favourable terms, an agreement over which the previous directors had been the subject of attack, was also explained ‘by Mr; Kenny . y ■y Minutes Allegedly Altered. Mr KennyX -statements . were supported by Mr E. R. Bird and Mr C. B. ■ Michies late chairman of,, the- company. Allegations were also'made that the; minutes"of directors’ meetings had been altered, and, in some instances, resolutions were erased from the min-ute-book. Such allegations as these were strongly denied by Messrs Reed, Berghan, Lewis and Parker. Mr Reed said that the company had, in consigning its production, followed the policy of the majority of the other butter companies in New Zealand, and yet the shareholders of the other companies had not held indignation meetings. Mr Reed then quoted authorities to show that the new directors’ policy of forwarding all butter on consignment was sound and that all indications from London were that the price of butter would be maintained at a high level. .On these advices, the new directors had decided on a consignment policy, and he challenged the figures quoted by Mr Kenny as to the loss sustained by the company through this policy. The figures were fallacious. “Absolutely Incorrect.” “It is absolutely incorrect,” said Mr Reed, “to say that I instructed the secretary to alter. or delete a resolution from the minute book.” The new directors maintain that the secretary of the company had not given them the information, which should have been placed before them. A number of shareholders then gave their views, following which the secretary, Mr L. A. Mclntosh, was allowed to speak. He said that at all times when he was able to got into communication with the chairman he had done so and he had given full information. The chairman had stated that no sales of butter could have been, made

around 1/2;; per lb. Despite this statement, however, he had told Mr Reed that information had been received by the office that butter was selling f.o.b. at 1/3J per lb. to 1/2” per lb. He also explained other questions raised by speakers during the meeting.