COMPANY MEETING
CAMBUHY COFFEE AND COTTON ESTATES
GOOD PROFIT FROM COTTON
THE twelfth annual general meeting of the Cambuhy Coffee and Cotton Estates, Limited, was held on August 9th at Winchester House, London, E.C.
Mr. Arthur Whitworth (the Chairman) said that the board were much gratified to meet the shareholders under much happier auspices than had prevailed in past years. For the year 1936 a loss resulted in respect of coffee of £12,800, as compared with a loss of £2,696 for 1935 ; so that the trading profit of £32,360 was due not to coffee, the main product of the estate, but to the very satisfactory profit of £32,745 realised from cotton, to a profit of £3,819 realised on cattle, to a profit of £2,985 realised from the operations of the oil factory, and to a small profit from timber. To these had to be added a profit of £9,900 being difference in exchange. These results were rather better than were anticipated when he indicated in January, at the time that the capital reconstruction was approved, that there appeared to be a sum of £30,000 odd which would be available for profit on account of 1936. The actual difference was some £3,000, and this had enabled the directors to recommend the payment of a dividend of 7 per cent., less tax, on the £42o,000 capital of the company.
Though the last two years had brought them no profit from coffee, the. position today had undergone a radical improvement since October last, entirely due to the increase in the price of coffee at Santos as a result of the.policy of the National Coffee Department in restricting entries into Santos and by their own operations in forcing up the price of coffee in order to protect the exchange position of Brazil. At the end of 1936 the Estate had for sale approximately 130,00o bags of coffee, the great bulk of which had now been sold at an enhanced level of prices leaving them on account of the current year a satisfactory profit on coffee, even after allowing for the loss which they foresaw on the smaller production of the 1937-38 crop.
He had recently returned from a visit to Brazil, during which he spent over a week on the company's property and was greatly im- pressed with what he saw. As to the prospects for the current year, he had already alluded to the unexpected change that had taken place in the profits to come from coffee. The cotton crop had been damaged by bad weather, but in spite of that they could look for satisfactory profits. While he could say with some confidence that the current year would be a satisfactory one, he could not make any prophecy further ahead.
The report was adopted.
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