REGISTRATION OF COMPANIES

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLXI, Issue 15237, 30 December 1942, Page 4

REGISTRATION OF COMPANIES

FEWER APPLICATIONS. Investment in the Dominion has been widely affected by war conditions, and perhaps no more striking- , ly than in the registration of companies. Under the Finance Regulations no company can. be registered without the consent of the Minister of Finance, and this restriction, together with war conditions generally, has resulted in the registration of only 51 companies in the Auckland district during the present year, about a quarter of those, in a normal year. Last year 103 companies were entered, and in 1930 the figure was 242. Thirty-three of the 51 companies were formed to incorporate existing businesses, and the capital involved ranged from £SO (a movie picture exhibitor) to £60,000, a concern manufacturing and distributing asbestos aud cement products. Only two public companies, a sawmill and knitting mills, were included in the total registered. Roth were new businesses, one with a nominal capital of £25,000 and the other £BOOO. Not more than a dozen applications to have companies registered were rejected, but the number of applications made, of course, was substantially . below that of pre-war years. Manufacturing is the principal trend among new ventures today, a development noted before the war but greatly accentuated as a result of import restrictions and Govern-

tuent encouragement to assist the war effort. Illustrative of the many articles formerly imported, and now made in the Dominion and represented among the activities of the companies registered this year are the following: Toys, clothing, cardboard boxes, frocks, adhesives, leather bags, tool handles, asbestos gloves, picture frames, boots, radios. In addition there are enterprises associated with manufactures ranging from lime and pies to furniture.