COMPANY NOTES
THE STANDARD BANK OF SOUTH AFRICA earlier this year made an issue to shareholders of 1,840,000 shares at 37s. each, thus increasing the issued ordinary capital to ill mil- lion. The balance sheet for the year ended March 31, 1959, shows a greatly increased liquidity, cash resources being increased by £3.3 million. The bank has entered the hire-purchase field by acquiring a 40 per cent, interest in the National Industrial Credit Corporation, a South African subsidiary of Mercantile Credit, which also gives them an indirect interest in National Industrial Credit of Rhodesia. The profit for the year was £1,080,864, to which can be added the amount brought forward of £439,021; the reserve fund now stands at the impressive figure of £10,440,000. An interim dividend of 5 percent. was paid before the capital was increased; a final of 9 per cent. is now proposed. The Bank has several hundred branches throughout the continent of Africa and looks forward to further expansion, for as the chairman, Sir Edmund Leo Hall-Patch, says, 'Those who look back and measure the enormous strides made in Africa in the last fifty years have little doubt that the solutions for present difficul- ties will be found and that this progress will con-
tinue.' The £1 ordinary shares at 39s. yield 7.1 per cent.
Mount Charlotte Investments have more than lived up tp their promise of better profits for the year to June 30, 1959, by increasing the forecast final dividend from 6 per cent. to 8 per cent., making 14 per cent. for the year, which compares with 11 per cent. for the previous year on a smaller capital. In 1956 this company acquired a control- ling interest in Bettafoods operating a number of quick-service restaurants in Central London. This May the company, by a rights issue of 2s. 'A' ordinary shares at 2s. 3d., acquired the whole of the issued ordinary capital of Walkers Restaurants Ltd., operating a number of medium-priced restaurants in the City of London which the chair- man, Mr. H. Scott Thompson, estimates will pro- duce a profit (before taxation) of not less than £18,000 for the year ending June 30, 1960, on assets acquired at a valuation of £100,000 for five restaurants. After taxation the profits for the Group were £22,937. It is worth noting that the. accounts for the year have been produced very promptly; the forthcoming chairman's statement will doubtless be informative. The.2s. 'A' ordinary shares are at present around 5s. 3d.
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