Carpenters’ Profits

Interesting Sidelight on Trading Policies

A PROFIT of £80,194 (compared with £75,665 in the previous year) was made in the financial year ended June 30 by W. R. Carpenter and Co., Ltd., of Sydney—which now is virtually a holding company for a group of lively subsidiary companies trading in the Pacific.

The Co. is paying the usual 10 per cent, on the subscribed capital (£775,000); but it informs shareholders that, in accord ance with last year’s resolutions, half of the subscribed capital is now to be re turned.

With the remaining half of its sub scribed capital, and reserves In the vicinity of half a million, the Co. still will have ample working capital; while its liability to shareholders will be so re duced that on a normal annual profit it could, if it wished, pay a 20 per cent, dividend.

It is very interesting to note how the two big Sydney companies which were founded on Pacific Islands trade have guarded their interests in tne past couple of decades against the threat of Socialist intrusions. Burns Philp & Co. have transferred a very large proportion of their activities from Islands trade and transport to Australian mainland distrinow own important and growing chains of big stores in Queens land and New South Wales. What they lose on the swings of Wardist hate of private enterprise in Melanesia, they more than gain on the merry-go-rounds of retail distribution in the Eastern States.

Carpenters have followed a somewhat different plan. Their fortunes were built on copra, and before World War II they did not like what they could see in the control of the copra market by a world wide monopoly. So they set out on a policy of carrying the copra in their own ships to their own crushing mills; and to-day, through subsidiary and associ ated companies, they control a line oi very good ships, and crushing mills in Fiji, Canada and New Guinea. Their Pondo establishment, which was stamped out of existence in the Jap invasion of New Guinea, has been replaced by a bigger and better establishment near Madang.

Like the BP policy, it is a very good example of how to keep all your eggs out of one basket.

In these days of irresponsible Socialist administration, there is a lesson here for all big organisations which have been founded on individual initiative and pri vate enterprise.

The Carpenter balance sheet shows that the Co. is prepared for the return of capital. On June 30, the cash on hand totalled £404,444; and there was over £1,160,000 invested in subsidiaries.