sights after 100 years

Burns Philp shifts its sights after 100 years

Burns, Philp and Company Ltd., the widely-established Australian company which became a major force in Pacific Island retailing, plantations, shipping and service industries, is celebrating its centenary.

Just on 100 years ago two Scots men who had migrated to Aust ralia formed a partnership which established one of the best known names in the economy of the Islands Bums Philp. At one stage their company was so influential and so much a part of the Islands economy that it was printing its own money with leg al recognition. The parent com pany of the group, Bums, Philp and Company Ltd., has been holding celebrations to mark its centenary.

The company is based in Syd ney and its subsidiaries continue to operate throughout the Is lands. But its financial base is now in Australian operations rather than in the Islands, and local equity has been absorbed into its Island subsidiaries. It has diversified widely, buying into a wide field of Australian ventures.

The company, which became known throughout the Islands as “Beeps”, has moved away from

its original shipping, retailing

and plantation interests, con

solidating some and shedding

others. Now it operates in the hardware industry as a major supplier, in the hotel and liquor industries, as a motor and machinery dealer, food and be verage supplier, food and bever age machinery supplier, in the travel industry, cement and building materials, leisure goods, office equipment, film

processing, photographic equip

ment interests and joint venture

mining.

James Bums arrived in Aust ralia in 1862 aged 16. He worked as a jackeroo at Helidon Station near Toowoomba in Queensland, and later on the Barcoo River.

His first experience of retailing was in the Queensland capital,

Brisbane, but soon afterwards he initiated his own retailing ven ture on the Queensland gold fields at Gympie. He was one of the first arrivals there, in 1866, supplying goods to the fast

increasing population. He

operated stores at Gympie, One- Mile Creek and Kilkiyan and his business thrived over a period of three years.

He returned to Scotland for a brief period, but by 1872 he was back in Queensland and in 1873 he opened a store in the prosper ous northern centre of Towns ville. The 15-metre frontage of his timber-built store in Towns ville carried a sign proclaiming “J. Bums, General Storekeep er” and advertised “Boots, Crockery, Wine and Spirit Mer

chant, Agent”.

Glasgow-born Robert Philp

was working in Australia for a shipping agent and merchant when he joined Bums in 1873, and soon afterwards the two men formed a partnership. Bums suf fered a bout of malaria in 1877, and this sent him south to Sydney from where he managed a chain of stores which he established in Queensland.

Bums, Philp and Company

was formally established in 1883, and four years later it began its movement into the Pacific Islands. The first Islands branch was on Samarai Island in what was then British New Guinea, later to be known as Papua, and now part of Papua New Guinea. Other branches fol lowed in Papua, one in Port Moresby and another in Dam.

Offices and branches then be gan to spread quickly. There was a move into other Island regions and the company also set up agency offices in New Zealand, England and USA. In the Island

countries Bums Philp was often established ahead of government services, and this was the period during which the company print ed its own money to facilitate exchange. Meanwhile there was also some expansion in Aust ralia, into the pastoral and timber industries.

Bums Philp was listed on the Sydney Stock Exchange in 1896 with a paid capital of 267,000 pounds, although accumulated reserves already were 100,000 pounds and total assets exceeded half a million. In 1900 the turn over exceeded one million pounds.

Bums became a respected citi zen of Sydney and founded the New South Wales Lancers, of which he was first colonel. He also served as a member of the NSW Legislative Council. He was knighted in 1917, and he died in 1923.

Philp became member for Townsville in the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1886 and had a long career in state politics. He was Premier of Queensland when the Australian states federated.

World War II in the Pacific had far-reaching effects on a large proportion of the Bums Philp operation, including the destruction of assets in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Is lands. The Island operations re sumed after the war, but often with a different emphasis and sometimes on a smaller scale.

The political evolution of the Island countries also meant fi nancial restructuring in many of the Bums Philp companies.

One of the major subsidiaries, Burns Philp (New Guinea) Limited now Burns Philp (PNG) Limited was formed in 1946 to take over much of the

PNG operation. In 1972 the In vestment Corporation of PNG acquired a 26 percent interest in the Bums Philp PNG company.

The corporation is in effect a government-backed unit trust in vestment body which distributes portfolio dividends to sharehol ders who must be PNG citizens.

In the late 1960 s Bums Philp phased out of its international shipping services, ending the his toric Bums Philp Line which had been widely known across the Pacific and through the Island countries. The cost of operating under the Australian flag was a major ingredient in this decision.

The company retained some in terest in Island coastal services.

Although remaining a power

ful economic force in the Islands, Bums Philp in the past decade or so has been increasingly expand ing its Australian interests to the point where Australian opera tions now predominate. Since 1972 the company has purchased outright or obtained control of nine major ventures and a num ber of smaller ones. They range from electrical manufacturing to motor retailing, and include a controlling interest in Robe River Ltd., an iron ore mining opera tion in Western Australia.

Bob Lawrence in Sydney for Australian Associated Press.

Air Caledonie

to go regional?

New Caledonia’s Council of

Government has given approval

“in principle” to the establish ment of a Noumea-based region al airline to be called Air Caledonie International. The company would have a capital of CFP7O million (about $A625,000), with two-thirds of the shares held by local New Caledonian investors, and the other third by the territorial ad

ministration through the existing

domestic carrier Air Caledonie.

Talks on the project were to be held in Paris in April. As well as discussing creation of the airline, the talks were to deal with the opening of new air routes bet ween Noumea and the Australian cities of Brisbane and Mel bourne. The new routes have long been desired by New Caledonia’s tourist industry.

Senator wants

Clipperton

Senator Daniel Millaud, who re presents the territory of French Polynesia in the Parliament in Paris, wants Clipperton Island annexed to Polynesia. Clipper ton, taken by France in 1875, is 6500 kilometres from Tahiti, but only 1500 kilometres from the coast of Mexico.

The island is three kilometres wide by two kilometres long.

Senator Millaud's interest is in having the tiny island included in French Polynesia’s exclusive economic zone. It offers promis ing opportunities for high-seas fishing, and the deposits of man ganese nodules on its surround ing seabed are said to be more abundant than those already found off the islands of French Polynesia’s Marquesas group.

Ponape-U.S.

satellite link

With a phone call to Vice- President George Bush in Washington in March, Federated States of Micronesia President Tosiwo Nakayama inaugurated the first earth station in the FSM linked to a global satellite com munications network. President Nakayama spoke directly to the vice-president over the new satellite telephone system from the FSM capital on Ponape.

The earth station, the first of several scheduled to be built in the FSM by the Comsat Satellite Corporation, will vastly improve telephone and other communica tion between Micronesia and the rest of the world. The earth sta tion can also provide telex, data and television channels.

The new earth station, located on Ponape Island, will be fol lowed by others in Truk, Yap and Kosrae, tying the FSM to gether and linking it to the world.

Before construction of the Comsat link, Micronesia could be contacted only by unreliable high-frequency radio communications.

Speaking in front of a jubilant crowd including leading chiefs and other distinguished residents of Ponape, President Nakayama first telephoned Vice-President Bush and Ambassador Fred Zed

er, President Reagan’s special representative on Trust Territory status negotiations, in

Washington.

During the phone call, Vice- President Bush congratulated President Nakayama on the new system, and expressed admira tion for the president’s leader ship. In a later telephone call to the FSM’s Washington office, where a reception was taking

place, President Nakayama ask

ed Dr John McLucas, president of Comsat’s World Systems Di vision, to expedite construction of the other earth stations, if possible.

Speaking to President Nakaya

ma from the same reception, Pedro San Juan, U.S. assistant secretary of the interior for ter ritorial affairs, said: “We are all the beneficiaries of this. We are now all in touch with Ponape and that enriches our lives.”

Money in

snails?

The Giant African Snail, regard ed as a pest in most South Pacific islands, is expected to increase Vanuatu’s export income. A fac tory has been established on San to to process snails for export to France.

Vanuatu’s Land

Leasing Act OK’d

A number of new projects are expected to begin in Vanuatu

following the passing by parlia

ment in mid-April of the long awaited Land Leasing Act.

Foreign companies already es

tablished in Vanuatu have wel comed the measure. Ownership of all land in Vanuatu reverted to the traditional owners at inde pendence in mid-1980, and all foreign-owned freehold title was abolished.

The Land Leasing Act pro vides for 75-year leases, and protects both parties to a lease the traditional owners and the companies to whom they lease their land.

Many investors have held back from launching new projects in Vanuatu because of the uncer tainty that has existed over land since independence. Parliamen tary debate on the legislation lasted for three full weeks.