COMMERCIAL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19622, 4 May 1938, Page 8

COMMERCIAL

GENERAL MOTORSHOLDENS PROFIT EXCEEDS £1,000.000 A profit.of £1,005,773, equivalent to litl per cent on capital, is reported by General Motors-Holdens. Limited, Australia, for the year ended December 31. The profit, which is easily a record for the company, compares with £746,670 in 1936, and £673,060 in 1935. The profit for 1937, which was struck after making full allowance for all trading expenses, places General Motors-Holdens, Limited, among the v.ery few Australian companies to have recorded profits above £1,000,000.

After incurring losses amounting to nearly £870.000 in the two years and a-half to December 31, 1032, it lias enjoyed a remarkable increase in profits in the last five years. No cash ordinary dividend is being paid for 11)37, whereas 40 per cent was paid for 1930 and 25 per cent for the preceding year. Nearly all the ordinary capital is held by the General Motors Corporation of America, and. instead of receiving a cash dividend for 1937, ordinary shareholders have taken up 784,200 shares.

Because of increased business, the directors state that it was considered advisable to increase the capital. This was done at the beginning of the year by the creation of 761/1)00 ordinary shares'.of £f each, thus raising the authorised capital to £2,311,600. The whole of the issue has been effected by the capitalisation of undivided profits. Thus, all the authorised capital is now fully paid. Preference capital amounts to e. 561,600, and most of this is held in Australia. The yearly 0 per cent charge of £33,696 on this stock is covered nearly HO times by the profit for 1937.

The directors of Greater Crystal Palace, Limited, theatre proprietors. Christchurch, announce a dividend ol 5 per cent and a bonus of 5 per cent for the year ended March 31. The dividend is the first since a payment of 6 oer cent for the 1933-34 year.