Financial Notes
. THE STRENGTH OF WIDE discussion of the proposals of the Imperial Chemical Industries Board for converting the deferred capital into ordinary shares should not be allowed to obscure some other aspects of the company's position. On general grounds, the most important consideration is that the 1934 report confirms Previous indications that the company is providing a remark- able example of the successful industrial combine. Formed at a time when the vogue for big industrial units was at its height, the company, like others established at the time, gave rise to a fear in some quarters that its very size would render it un- wieldy. The history of the combined undertaking, however, proves such apprehension to have been groundless. Net profits have advanced steadily from £3,408,290 in 1931 to 16,349,107 last year, after shoiving considerable resistance -to the effects of the preceding trade. depression, and the ordinary share dividend has been increased from 44 per cent. to 8 -per cent. The Imperial Chemical record, in fact, demonstrates plainly that management is capable of dealing successfully with an undertaking -with an issued share capital of as much as £77,000,000, an achievement which appears all the more notable when it -is recalled that some at least of the major con- stituents of the original merger had been by no means com- pletely successful as separate undertakings. The success of the combine, therefore, is a matter of congratulation not only for individual shareholders, but for the wide range of inchistry
in which I.C.I. is concerned. • * *
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