Steady as she goes
AFTERTHOUGHT JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE
Annual report from the Managing Director of Great Britain, Ltd, Mr R. Jenkins. the chair- man being indisposed, to the shareholders, to be delivered at the annual general meeting of the company on 15 April.
For the second year running I have been asked to present this report, owing to the continuing indisposition of our chairman. I am sure you will all wish to join with me in wishing him a speedy recovery from his present 'eclipse.' I am delighted to tell you that he has been able to undertake a number of purposive tours of inspection of your company's overseas markets and subsidiaries during the past year. But we are advised that it would be unwise for him to resume his responsibilities at home as yet.
In my report last year I felt obliged to warn you that the company was in for 'two years' hard slog,' and that once again payment of the _ national dividend would have to be deferred. In this sense the situation is unchanged. We are still in for two years' hard slog : and I must recommend continued deferment of the national dividend.
The year under review has been a difficult one for your company. You will recall that following the writing down of your company's assets, which occurred in November 1967, I forecast a temporary deterioration in our trading income. In the event this temporary deterioration has turned out to be unexpectedly prolonged. Fortunately this has been partially offset by an improvement in our income from investments (which, as the chairman and others of my colleagues have frequently emphasised, it is our intention to run down as and when the opportunity to do so presents itself).
The result is that there has been a significant improvement in the overall financial position of your company, and I am once more happily able to forecast a return to very substantial profitability by the end of this year. I think you will agree that this is a sign of the continuity of management which your company has enjoyed: this is the fifth successive year in which we have felt able to forecast a return to profit- ability.
While it has been a difficult year, 1968-69 has certainly not been an uneventful one for your company. The policy of disposing of unprofit- able overseas subsidiaries has been continued, and we have devoted much attention to the development of our European markets. Our plans for a merger with Europe et Cie continue to 'lie upon the table,' and we hgve every confidence that we will be able to proceed with them as soon as our export sales department have succeeded in their praiseworthy scheme to persuade that company to replace its present chairman. During the course of last autumn your chairman and I made the strongest repre- sentations to our German competitors about the obligation upon them to purchase from our German subsidiary, and warned them of the dire consequences of their failing to do so. We shall continue to make such representations, and in the meantime I am happy to be able to assure you that the malicious account of our repre- sentations which appeared in certain German newspapers was without foundation.
PERSONNEL
It gives me particular pleasure to welcome Mr T. Goode, who was elected to a directorship of your company last year, following the pur- chase of a substantial equity stake in youf com- pany by the IMF Corp, Inc, of Washington nc. Mr Goode, as you will no doubt be aware, is an executive vice-president of IMF Corp, and we have found his advice on our numerous prob- lems invaluable—indeed I might say indispen- sable. He submits himself for re-election.
During the course of the year under review we were sorry to say goodbye to our personnel director, Ray Gunter, who decided to return to 'the folk from whence he came.' We wish him well there, and miss the evangelical flavour that he often managed to impart to our discussions.
Following Mr Gunter's departure it was decided to upgrade and revamp the personnel side of the company, and I am delighted to welcome now our first Director of Executive, Staff and Personnel Appreciations and Income Re-evaluations---DasPant, as we have learnt to call her—Mrs Castle. Her contribution to the progress of your company has indeed already proved itself unique, and I would like here and now to repudiate press suggestions of disagreements between myself and Mrs Castle. They are totally without foundation: I can only say that if we are pursuing contradictory objectives we are completely unaware of the fact—and we ought to know. We are a happy and united company, and it is indicative, I think, of the far-sighted thinking of my col- leagues that we are already hard at work amongst ourselves choosing your next chair- man, just in case anything should happen to the-present one.
The past year has been marred by a number of regrettable industrial disputes affecting your company's factories in the United Kingdom —and here the contribution of Mrs Castle has been truly "outstanding. Without her untiring efforts the situation would certainly have been very different. But we have felt obliged to make it clear to our employees that we cannot continue to tolerate this situation for very much longer: your chairman has already warned the employees that we mean business and I hope to be able to announce in due course when.
PROSPECTS
I have already indicated our renewed expecta- tion of a return to profitability in the year ahead. 1969-70, like 1966-67, and 1968-69, will be 'make or break year' for your company, and if I had to coin a slogan for Great Britain Ltd it would be 'steady as she goes.'
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