COMPANY NOTES
LAST year was a momentous one for Metal Industries, who were successful in outbid- ding Electrical and Musical Industries for Lancashire Dynamo Holdings at a cost of £12 million in cash and shares. This is a valu- able acqpisition adding electric motors and trans- formers, etc., to its own hydraulic and pneumatic control gear, thus considerably widening the group's interests in the field of industrial auto- mation. The chairman, Sir Charles Westlake, has every reason to say that he hopes that profits will be maintained this year. He states that a big capital development programme is under way and that order books are full. Net profit (after tax) for the year to March 31, 1960,. was £856,379 against £765,018, which represents earnings of over 32 per cent. for the 15 per cent. dividend. The rights issue last May produced £3,890,000 and after repayment of bank overdrafts left the group with £1 million in cash. It is reasonable to expect the dividend to be maintained at 15 per cent. next year, so that the £1 shares at 70s., yielding 4.3 per cent., are a very sound investment with definite future prospects for con- tinued expansion. The company now has thirty- eight subsidiary companies at home and overseas.
Since the last accounts of P. Winn (Barking) Limited considerable alterations in the structure of the company halve been made and to some advantage. The trading profit for 1959 increased by £27,000 to £106,542, and the net profit from £13.341 to £23,046, thus giving earnings of 19 per cent. for the repeated 10 per cent. dividend. H. B. Barnard, the non-ferrous metal merchants, has been sold; Wright Bros. (box makers) may have to close down, owing to the compulsory purchase of the Homerton factory. Conse- quently, the chairman, Mr. J. C. Pidduck, advises that the company has purchased Bochanan and Sons, of Liverpool (coke-oven machinery en- gineers), and Sectional Concrete Buildings, of Fenny Compton, near Banbury. These, ac- quisitions make it necessary to increase the issued capital .to £283,478. The chairman is opti- mistic for the future and reports favourably concerning the expansion of the subsidiary Collico—hirers of collapsible metal containers used in conjunction with British Railways. He anticipates pre-tax profits of £140,000 on the increased capital, which would enable the board to increase the dividend from 10 per cent., the rate paid for several years. At 7s. 3d. the 4s. ordinary shares yield nearly 6 per cent.
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