COMPANY MEETING
RHOKANA CORPORATION
INCREASED TRADING PROFIT
THE eighteenth annual ordinary general meeting of Rhokana Corpora- tion, Ltd., was held on December 4th, in London.
Mr. Franck L. Gibbs (deputy chairman), who presided, said that the profit and loss account showed that before charging debenture and loan interest and making appropriation to the depreciation reserve account and the development reserve account, the trading profit was £2,846,838 as against £2,107,062 in the previous year. They had received a gross dividend from Mufulira Copper Mines, Ltd., of £177,668 as compared with £217,149, and the balance carried to appropriation account was £2,773,801 as compared with £2,116,398. The appropriation for taxation for the year was £1,650,000, which was an increase of £90o,00o. For the purpose of estimating their liability to excess profits tax, the computation of their pre-war standard had to include the results of a period when they had not yet completed their main programme of development and equipment. They had submitted to the authorities all the relevant facts which in their opinion rendered such a method of computation inequitable, but the authorities had been unable to grant them any relief in that respect. The result was that on their present estimates of tax liability, despite an increased operating profit of over £730,000, the reserve the directors found necessary to make for taxation left less profit available for distribution than in the previous year. However, shareholders would find gratification in the fact that not only had the Corporation been able to meet to the full the varying requirements of copper of the Ministry of Supply at reasonable prices paid for in sterling since the outbreak of war, but was also able to assist the country's war effort by the provision of such large sums of money.
It had been necessary for the directors to recommend that the final dividend distributable should be reduced from 25 per cent. to 15 per cent., bringing the total dividend for the year to 4o per cent. as compared with so per cent. last year. Since in some quarters a dividend of 4o per cent. was interpreted as showing that shareholders were receiving 4o per cent. on the money invested, he would refer to the fact that whereas the issued amount of the ordinary capital was £2,500,002, the capital raised and employed was just under £18,000,000. The distribution, therefore, of £1,000,001 by way of dividend represented a return of 51 per cent. During the year mining operations had continued normally and satisfactorily, except for a five-day strike of the daily-paid European employees in March, followed by a strike of approximately ten days of the African employees at Mindola.
The report was adopted.
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