FINANCIAL NOTES
IMPERIAL AIRWAYS RESULTS
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THE results now announced by IMperial Airways for the year ended March 31st do not include any part of the period since Sir John Reith assumed the chairmanship of the Company ; they take us roughly -up to the time of the publication of the Cadman report. In view of the criticisms which have been passed on the development of civil aviation up to that point the result might easily have been worse. Net profit for the year ended March 31st was £67,468 lower than in the previous year at .£97,267. This result is arrived at after providing a smaller sum (£145,420, against £193,918) for obsolescence. It is, nevertheless, sufficient to enable the Company to dis- tribute to its shareholders roughly double the amount which was distributed in the previous year. A dividend of 7 per cent. is declared on the Ordinary capital of £1,624,089 against a total of 9 per cent. on a capital of £624,089 in the previous year. As promised, a dividend fund of £150,000 is being created out of undistributed profit balances and for this purpose £9o,000 is taken from the Contingency account and £60,000 from the balance of profit and loss account brought forward from the previous year. The Company has been less generous in its reserve appropriations which were specially swelled in the previous year with a view to the creation of the Dividend Fund. Tax reserve receives £5,00e, against £30,000, and Contingency reserve £10,000, against £95,000. But the year's distribution has been covered with a margin and the balance to go forward is £5,447 against £4,713 brought in after the transfer of £60,000 to the Dividend Fund.
IMPERIAL SMELTING REPORT
Imperial Smelting Corporation, who have built up the zinc smelting industry in this country, have already announced that they are this year paying only 4i per cent. on their 61 per cent. Preference shares whereas a year ago they paid the full Preference dividend and 5 per cent. on the Ordinary capital. The full accounts are in line with the dividend declaration. The consolidated trading profit of the group fell from £435,139 tb £221,272. The net profit, after making less generous allow- ances for depreciation, fell from £266,430 to £107436. The reduced profit is sufficient to cover the reduced preference dividend and total balances of £103,736, against £99,779, are carried forward in the accounts of the group. The parent company carries forward £80,806 against £70,620, while the undivided balances of the Subsidiary undertakings have been slightly reduced. The outlook would be highly disconcerting, were it not for the fact that the zinc market has taken a turn for the better since the corporation's financial year ended on June 30th. Actually, the price of zinc has risen appreciably since then and it has recently been announced that a scheme for the Empire Zinc producers has been formulated as a result of which application for increased duties on foreign spelter are now under consideration by the Import Duties Advisory Committee. The average price of spelter during the past year was £16 15s. Id. per ton 'against £20 2S. Id. in the pre;fious year. Today it is- well below 416 per ton but the
tendency is upward. * * * *
" CASTS " LOWER PROFITS
Consolidated African Selection Trust, which with its sub- sidiary, Sierra Leone Selection Trust, controls the diamond mining, industry in Sierra Leone, has naturally suffered from the fall in the diamond market which was one of the fenhu'es of the trade recession. The profit for year ended June 3oth amounted to £3,74,444, as comparedwith £582,406 in the previous year. A scrip bonus of 300 per cent. was distributed a year ago so that the dividend reduction from 90 per cent. tax free to -15 per cent. tax free is less -steer than it appears. It is equivalent to a reduction from 221 per cent. tax free to is per cent. tax free. The total allocations to reserves have been reduced from £224,504 to £127,443. But the balance carried forward is increased from £31,522 to £393920, and the report states that operations at the mines in the Gold Coast and in Sierra Leone continued without interruption, though at a reduced rate.
J. D. M.
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