Company Notes
By LOTHBURY
Lowut profit margins were experienced by Barton and Sons, the tube and conduit manu- facturers, for 1964, but increased activity in the engineering industry pushed sales up by 30 per cent. Higher costs and a shortage of labour hampered greater expansion in profits and this trend, unfortunately, still continues. Pre-tax profits rose from £1,009,638 in 1963 to £1.163,302
in 1964 and the dividend from 14.4 per cent to 16 per cent. The chairman, Mr. C. A. Roper, is hopeful of further expansiOn during 1965, which should justify the present price of the 5s. shares at 13s. 9d., yielding 5.7 per cent.
The half-yearly profits of Mann Egerton have
been boosted 46 per cent by pre-budget sales.
The newly-acquired subsidiary Sumo earned profits of £138,000 in its last financial year. The group's annual rate of profit is now running at about £650,000. The interim dividend is repeated
at 5 per cent; last year's total was 17f per cent. The 5s. shares are 15s.
Longmans Green, the book publishers, is in-
creasing its interim dividend from 6d. to 7d. from pre-tax profits of £925,000 for the first seven months of the current year. Last year's total dividend was 29f per cent, which gives the 5s. shares at 44s. a yield of only 3.2 per cent based on its past excellent performances.
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