Manawatu Railway Co.

Manawatu Herald, 9 April 1898, Page 2

Manawatu Railway Co.

£500,000 FOR THE ASSETS.

MR PLIMMER GIVES FIGURES,

At the annual meeting of the above Company on Wednesday, Mr J. Plimmer said that when they sold their shares they must recollect what are the assets of the company. Although he approved of the balance sheet as giving a dear view of the position of the company, in his opinion it did not give a true idea of the assets of the company. He cautioned them not to sell their shares a* £1 or £1 5s, and be thought it bat right that they should know the position in which the assets of the company stood. The liability to the debenture-holders was £680,000, and the value of their railroad wa? a great deal more than that. There were 170,000 shares, making £170,---000 of assets ; money transferred from land account to railway and spent thereon, to the be9t of his knowledge was about £89,165; that was an asset ; balance of land sold and not paid for, but under mortgage to the company, £52,819 ; profits on working of railway, £25,024 ; profits on land a3 per balance-sheet, £46,599 ; cash deposited in the Bank of New Zealand, £5819; reclaimed land, Wellington station, 20 acres at £1500 per acre. £80,000 (a Wellington broker told him the land was worth £2500 an acre in the market). Then there were 1800 acres at Eererua Bog, with improvements in drainage, &c, at £6 per acre, £78,---0 90,000 acres of common land for farming, with much good timber on it, unsold, and improved by the railway, say, at 80s per acre, £185,---000. All these added up gave asaets io the amount of £681,626. This would give an average of £8 10a per share. If the Government were to take over the railway for the value of tbe debentures, allowing the company the land money which the directors had used to improve it, without interest, each share would

be worth £3 103. He mentioned this as a caution to the shareholders not to sell their shares on account of the reduced dividends which they were to receive this year. Their chairman was the best chairman they had ever had in the company— (hear, hear)— but he considered it his duty to tell them what he had without finding fault with anything. He declared that if he had the mfeuy now he would give £500,000 fpjpe assets of the company.