REDWOOD FORESTS, LIMITED,

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12750, 14 September 1934, Page 5

REDWOOD FORESTS, LIMITED,

COMPANY EX-DIRECTOR. Electric Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, Last Night. A former director of Redwood Forests, Ltd., Air F. F. Hockly, whose name was mentioned in the second interim report of the Company Promotion Commission, ba-s placed before the Commission a statement setting out his conneotion with Redwood Forests, Ltd. In the course of this he states that he joined the directorate on September 27, 1929, and resigned at the end of the company’s year. AATien asked to join, he regarded it as a recognition of his wellknown interest in afforestation and accepted the invitation as an opportunity to establish a valuable industry for the Dominion. His resignation was dictated by personal reasons, ancl he parted with his codirectors on friendly terms. As far as the investments were concerned, he could not recall exactly what was done in each case. His general impression was that in every instance a valuation by a competent valuer was produced to the directors. “I am fully assured in my own mind that every transaction appeared entirely regular; otherwise I would have questioned it at the time,” he concluded. DENIAL FROAI DUNEDIN. DUNEDIN, September 12. ‘‘The statement that the Executive Investment Trust acquired 45 per cent, of the company’s shares is absolutely incorrect,” said Air P. O. Smellie, manager of the Trustees, Executors and Agency Company, to-night, when Mr Alcorn’s evidence was brought under his notice. He reiterated the statement made yesterday that only three transfers, comprising 125 shares out of a total capital of 10.000 shares, had been passed by the directors during the last 12 months. “Tt was known,” Air Smellie said, “that shareholders had been approached to sell their shares, but until the transfers were passed it could not he said that the people at the hack of the buying movement had acquired any interest in the company. The company’s articles gave the directors ample power to reject transfers, ancl this had been, and would still be, rigorously apnlied to prevent rnntrol passing into different hands.” The board of directors, be added, had been fully alive to the situation for some months past.