RECORD TURNOVER

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 81, Issue 7253, 18 September 1950, Page 5

RECORD TURNOVER

FINE MARGIN REVEALED PROBLEM OF MOUNTING COSTS (Dominion Correspondent). As the result of buoyant trading conditions due to a large degree to record receipts enjoyed by the Dominion from exports, business transacted by the company throughout its Taranaki and Waikato branches reached record figures for merchandise, livestock, and wool, reported the chairman of directors, Mr. Eliot King, to the annual meeting of Newton King Limited in New Plymouth. Referring to the problem of mounting costs, Mr. King said that as an illustration of just how narrow the pi esent profit margin was, the surplus for the year was equivalent to only Is 8d out of every £1 gross profit *bf which lOd would be distributed to shareholders and a like sum added to reserves.

Taxation took 3s 2d out of every £1 gross profit and since 1936 had taken the colossal sum of £340,529. Dividends to shareholders amounted to only £110,856 and it had been possible to increase shareholders’ funds by only £93,470. Mr. King said it was hoped the reorganisation of the national finances would soon permit some relief in the taxation burden so it would become possible to expand and develop business from undistributed surpluses, but it must be realised the universal provision by the welfare state of free services would continue to impose an increasingly heavy burden on the community.