B.N.G. Trading

Company.

Sold to Burns, Philp & Co.

A VERY important transaction was unostentatiously completed re cently, when the whole of the trad ing interests of the British New Guinea Company, Ltd., of Papua, were sold to Messrs. Burns, Philp and Co., Ltd. The sale becomes effective from June 30 next.

Only the trading section of the big or ganisation (including the big store in Pt.

Moresby) has been sold. The “B.N.G.” (as it is generally known) will continue, as heretofore, its planting business. It owns and operates several coconut and rubber plantations.

It is not yet known whether Messrs.

Burns, Philp and Co., Ltd., will close up the B.N.G. stores (which have been their biggest competitors in Papua) or whether they will carry them on as a separate organisation. The Hon. G. W.

Guttridge, M.L.C., manager of the B.N.G.

Co., is not continuing his service, under the new conditions, after June 30.

The B.N.G. has been in Papua for many years, and is owned by a group of London investors. It was launched as a large-scale development company; and it operated satisfactorily for a num ber of years. But the economic depres sion, which has been felt most severely in Papua, affected the B.N.G. very seri ously, and the decision to sell the trad ing section of the Company caused no surprise.

News has come from Thursday Island that Dr. Donald Thomson, who is doing anthropological investigation down the Gulf, had the misfortune to lose his launch, which sank at its moorings.