Market report
CUSTOS
Markets these days seem to spend their time waiting for something—the trade figures, the gold figures, or one of the mini-budgets which come almost as often. The season opens on Tuesday; so the market is waiting for Mr Jenkins. Gilt-edged, especially, cannot move far until the Chancellor's measures are known and assessed. But they have been responding mildly to some winter sunshine—sterling has gone above $2.41, forward sterling is also better, and the New York bill rate has fallen.
The 'big five' banks all held their dividends, and all showed lower profits. The steepest fall came from Midland, which declared a profit 9 per cent lower than in 1966; when, in turn, it had shown the best increase. Probably the Midland figures show what the real trend has been for all the big five. Alexanders Discount cheered the market with a higher declared profit and a one-for-ten scrip issue. The losses of the autumn, when Bank rate rose by 21 per cent, cannot have wiped out the profits of the spring, when Bank rate fell 11 per cent. This was a good effort. Note that results from houses reporting in April and May—Gerrard and Reid and Cater, Ryder, for instance—will not have last spring's gains to offset the autumn's losses.
On the take-over front, an old rumour came true when Rio-Tinto-Zinc bid for Borax, valu- ing it at £55 million. Restraints on the export of capital from the United States seem to rule out an American counter-bid. Hall and Ham River, trying to fight off Redland, have rejected the revised bid and come out with a strong profit forecast. Now Ready Mixed Concrete have entered the auction and Redland, outbid for Greenwood's last year, must decide whether to let it happen again.
Company notes
It has been the brewers' week, with accounts from the two halves of Bass, Charrington and also from Watney, Mann. Mr Alan Walker, chairman of Bass, Mitchell and Butler, looks to economies from the Charrington merger to off- set higher taxation and increased costs— especially the 'scandalous increase' in electricity prices. About the Bent's take-over, Mr Walker says 'because we had bought in the market at lower prices than the final bid, the overall price
worked out at roughly million less than the figure which our rivals considered to be the "maximum commercial value of the com- pany."'
On prospects, Mr J. A. P. Charrington (Char- rington United) and Mr. D. P. Crossman (Wat- ney, Mann) agree with Mr Walker. They expect higher costs and are looking for economies. Sales, says Mr Crossman, are still chiefly in- fluenced by that most unpredictable of factors —the weather, 'and we can hardly hope for another year as favourable as last year was.'
Mr Harry Dolman, chairman of Brecknell, Dolman and Rogers (vending machines), re- ports a £22,000 increase in post-tax profits, to £241,362, on a turnover which passed the £21 million mark for the first time. The order book is 40 per cent up, including a new ticket machine for London Transport, and in a con- fident report Mr Dolman forecasts higher profits and a better export trade.
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