COMPANY MEETING
ODHAMS PRESS LIMITED
DIVIDEND INCREASED TO 7:1 PER CENT.
THE twenty-first annual general meeting of Odhams Press Ltd. was held on June 26th at the Connaught Rooms, Great Queen Street, W.C. The Right Hon. Lord Southwood of Fcmhurst (chairman and managing director) presided. THE twenty-first annual general meeting of Odhams Press Ltd. was held on June 26th at the Connaught Rooms, Great Queen Street, W.C. The Right Hon. Lord Southwood of Fcmhurst (chairman and managing director) presided.
The chairman said: It will be of interest to the shareholders to note that, while the copyrights, in the opinion of the directors, stand at a very conservative valuation, the general reserve fund now practi- cally equals the total of such copyrights. One of our main problems this year has been the supply of paper. This paper problem was carefully examined by the whole of the newspaper owners in this country. The result was that a company, called the Newsprint Supply Co., Ltd., was formed by the newspaper proprietors for the purpose of the co-operative buying of newsprint manufactured in Canada and Newfoundland to supplement that which could still be produced by the home mills. Under this arrangement, those newspapers who had at the time large stocks of newsprint, generously agreed to pool their stocks for the benefit of those who had smaller or no stocks.
IMPORTATION OF NEWSPRINT
Subject to such shipping facilities as are available, the Newsprint Co. are importing the maximum supplies of newsprint that can be obtained. In view of the large tonnage your company uses, this has necessitated our putting into stock and financing many thousands of tons of newsprint.
In this connexion, I would mention that your company, jointly with other newspaper proprietors, has, within limits, guaranteed the bank loans required to finance these considerable newsprint trans- actions. In view of the tendency for less shipping to become available, the proprietors have by mutual agreement found it necessary to arrange to reduce materially the size of newspapers, so as to conserve as much newsprint as possible. As a result, the actual use of news- print today is less than z5 per cent, of pre-war consumption.
PAPER FOR MAGAZINES
The other problem is the paper supplies for our weekly periodicals and magazines. The drastic reduction by Government Order, which has been gradually brought down to 25 per cent. of pre-war usage, has resulted in our not only having to reduce the sizes and number of pages, but to suspend or amalgamate temporarily some of the less important of your company's publications in order to preserve the goodwill of our more important properties of great national sale and reputation.
The report and accounts were unanimously adopted and a dividend on the ordinary shares at the rate of 71 per cent. per annum, as against 6 per cent. last year, was approved.
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