SCOTTISH AUSTRALIAN CO.
SUBSTANTIALLY IMPROVED RESULTS
THE annual general meeting of the Scottish Australian Co., Ltd., was held on December 17th at the offices of the Company, 197 Winche ter House, Old Broad Street, London, E.C.
J Mr. J. Campbell Inglis (Chairman and Managing Director) presided, and said : Gentlemen, I feel sure that you would prefer that the annual report of the directors, together with the statement of the accounts, which have been circulated to all the shareholders, should be taken as read, and that you will wish me to proceed at once to give to you my annual review of the affairs of the Company. A year ago I had the pleasure of calling your attention to the fact that the profits of the Company for the year then under review showed a substantial improvement on those for the previous year, a loss of over £60,000 having been transformed into a profit, after meeting debenture interest and all revenue charges, of £25,451. Great, however, as that improvement was, it was not sufficient to enable us to meet the dividends on our Guaranteed stocks, apart from any dividend on the Ordinary stock, but we were fortunately able to resort to a reserve which had proved to be no longer required, ' and with this assistance not only to pay the Guaranteed Preference stock dividends and a dividend of 4 per cent. on the Consolidated Ordinary stock, but in addition to carry forward a sum of over £4,000.
I now come to the year which ended on June 30th last, and it is a pleasure to all of us to report to you a further substantial improve- ment, for, compared with the profit of £25,451 9s. for the year ended June 30th, 1936, we have the figure of £74,924 45. Id.
Looking back with a broad vision on the events of the past year, I think that there is every element to justify confidence in the vitality of the Company. We have fine properties, we are producing a quality of wool which every year, I think I may say, shows an im- provement, and we have been able to add substantially to the head of sheep on our properties. The result of all this has been made apparent to us in the sub- stantial increase in the volume of the clip which we have to offer in the current year—an increase which may be put at nearly 3o per cent.
You may ask, therefore, perhaps, why in these circumstances the directors have in their prudence decided to recommend a dividend of only 5 per cent. on the Consolidated Ordinary stock. The answer to this is that the wool prices which prevailed during the past year have, since last July, suffered what I think I may call an inexplicable and unjustifiable decline. This becameparticularly marked in the month of November, though since then I have been glad to note some improvement, both in demand and prices. The report and accounts were unanimously adopted.
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