COMPANIES PAYING BIG DIVIDENDS IN U.S.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19241, 1 December 1930, Page 1

COMPANIES PAYING BIG DIVIDENDS IN U.S.

Disbursements For 1930 Compare Very Favourably With Last Year’s.

(United Press Association. —By Electric Teiegrapn.—-Copyright.) (Received December 1, 8.55 a.m.) NEW YORK, November 30. Six hundred companies will on Monday pay total dividends of £60,000,000, bringing the cash disbursements for 1930 to a point where they compare much more favourably with last year’s than had been expected. Last year’s total from 9200 companies was almost £1,000,000,000. What interests Wall Street most is the fact that the largest dividend payers are maintaining their disbursements at, or above, last year’s figures.

investors’ Returns IN N.Z. ARE STEADY.

ONLY A FEW MINOR REDUCTIONS MADE HERE.

Returns from investment in this part of the world have suffered as a result of the depression, but not to the extent expected by many people. Australian stocks have been more affected than New Zealand and reductions in dividends have been in a few cases substantial.

Banks may be taken as a good indication of what the rest of the market is doing. The Bank of Adelaide last year paid 10 per cent, but this year the dividend was 9 per cent. The Australian Bank of Commerce also

reduced its dividend by 1 per cent. The Commercial Bank of Australia, the Commercial Bank of Sydney, and the English, Scottish and Australian Bank paid the same dividend this year as last.

The Bank of New Zealand maintained its last year’s dividend, but the National Bank of New Zealand reduced its dividend by 2 per cent. Perhaps the most startling reduction, and the one which shows the effect of the depression on the agricultural community, is that of Dalgety and Co., which carries on business extensively in both New Zealand and Australia. Last year their dividend was 17 per cent, but this year it was brought down to 10 per cent. This reduction has been influenced probably mainly by Australia, because the companies carrying on business *in New Zealand alone have either maintained their payments to shareholders, or have shown only very minor reductions.