ENGINEERING COMPONENTS LIMITED
RECORD PROFITS
THE third ordinary general meeting of Engineering Components Limited, was held on May 12th at Winchester House, London E.C.
Dr. P. G. Griffith (the Chairman), who presided, said that the net profits earned by the Subsidiary Companies for the year 1937, after allowing for depreciation and all other charges except Income Tax and N.D.C., but including a profit of £2,050 made on the sale of freehold land, amounted to £55,981. That profit, which constituted a record in the history of the companies, compared with £36,462 for 1936, an increase of over 5o per cent. Dividends of £34,250 had been paid to the Parent Company, and the Subsidiary Companies were carrying forward £26,726 undistributed profits.
The past year had been exceptional inasmuch as it had shown an increase in the profits and sales of the subsidiary companies out of all relation to their steady progress in the years preceding. The history of the year in detail was also peculiar, for it began with an unusually early expansion of orders and after a period of great activity a sudden falling off of new business in the autumn, a state of things which continued into the present year.
They had come to believe that the experience of 1937 was no guide as to what they might reasonably anticipate in the present year. The developments of the early months would appear in the light of their present knowledge as a freak period set going perhaps by the hopes aroused by the rearmament programme, or it might be by the revolutionary theories of our modem economic guides. What- ever the cause, the year could not be taken as a guide to the trend of trade in the present or future years. Their experience up to now in the present year confirmed the view they had taken for some time, that 1938 would be a successor to 1936, rather than 1937, showing a regular advance on the years preceding, with, in all probability, additional returns from several new lines of activity which were expected to come into production in the near future.
Very considerable additions had been made to the plant of the Subsidiary Companies, and the plant generally had been kept in first-rate condition.
The report and accounts were unanimously adopted, and a final dividend of 121 per cent. less tax on the Ordinary shares, making 20 per cent. for the year, was declared.
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