Morris Hedstrom Ltd.

Last Year’s Profit Company’s Internal Strength

THE net profit made by Messrs.

Morris Hedstrom Ltd., of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, for the year ended March 31 last, was £49,141; which, considering the circumstances, compares very favourably with £70,375 in 1930, and £73,661 in 1929.

The ordinary dividend has been reduc ed from 8 to 6 per cent.

Balance sheet figures show the wis dom with which this big trading con cern is conducted. £41,025 of distribut able funds was brought forward from last year, so that the 8 per cent, rate could have been maintained without a strain. Instead, the dividend is re duced, and £45,789 is carried into the current year’s account. Further, the directors are taking £20,000 out of the healthy general reserve (which had been built up to £100,000) and using it to write about 221 per cent, off the book

value of plantations (£89,051). This is in addition to £15,000 written off last year.

The company’s chief liabilities are £740,000 of capital (£219,000 prefer ence), £47,868 to the banks (down by £20,000 compared with last year), £30,500 due to depositors, and £20,090 due to creditors. The main assets com prise plantations £89,051; lands and buildings £267,857; merchandise £173,246 (down £24 000 compared with 1930, and £63,000 compared with 1929); produce £55,243 (about half of what it was in 1929); due by branches and sub sidiary companies £142,233 (down by £20,000 compared with last year); deb tors £105,748; and shares and mort gages £205,154. Amounts due by debtors have grown by £17,000 in the year— obviously, signs of the time through which we are passing.

Sir Maynard Hedstrom, in address ing shareholders at the annual meet ing at Suva, alluding to the economic situation, said that in March, 1928, the company sold South Sea sun-dried cop ra in bags on the Continental market at £27 per ton; in March, 1929, similar quality at £22/10/- per ton; in March, 1930, £20/15/- per ton; and in March, 1931, at £14/15/- per ton. Since then the price had reached lower levels. In 1929 the copra exported from Fiji amounted to 33,226 tons; in 1930 the export amounted to 23,882 tons; in 1931, owing to damage done by hurricanes, it is expected that the export will be less than 20,000 tons.

Prospects for the coming year, he said, were not very favourable the spending power of the copra districts had been greatly reduced both by the smaller production and the substan tial reduction in the market value. In the sugar districts the crop had been reduced, but the Colonial Sugar Refin ing Co. Ltd. had maintained the for mer price for the raw product, so that the effect of the low prices ruling for the manufactured article had not been felt by the primary producer.

It is reported that no less than 800 letters were received recently in Aus tralia in response to an advertisement for a married couple to run the Club at Kavieng. in New Guinea.