“ARAPUNI, LTD.”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1081, 19 September 1930, Page 14

“ARAPUNI, LTD.”

ANNUAL MEETING HELD LAST EVENING “UNPARALLELED DISORDER” “Shareholders will remember that the company was formed to take over Arapuni as a going concern. When the company took over it was going fast —some said to the dogs, others to a place which ordinary politeness forbids us to name, but where, it is commonly believed, a quantity of water such as that escaping from Arapuni would meet with a warm reception and be decidedly welcome.” Thus the report of Arapuni, Ltd., the justly famous limited liability company which recently took over the Arapuni hydro-electric scheme from the New Zealand Government. The second annual meeting of the company was held last evening in the University College Hall, under the auspices of the A.C.C. Commerce Students’ Society, amid scenes of what was, to The Sun’* representative, unparalleled disorder. Groans, catcalls, whistling, singing, slamming doors and the most frivolous questions interrupted the patient efforts of the chairman to elucidate the company’s doings during the past year and to explain some of his colleagues’ actions. The meeting opened in confusion, amid the poisy protests of shareholders, when the secretary, Mr. Henry Verrie Sharpe, announced regretfully that he had lost the minutes of the last meeting. He had been on a holiday to Arapuni, he explained, and had dropped them somewhere. The chairman, Mr. Adam E. Rosion, suggested that the secretary should be called upon to give his impressions of the last meeting. In the secretary’s opinion, given in a pointed manner, the last meeting had been a “very orderly one.” The chairman moved and it was carried that the directors’ report and statement of accounts should be taken as read. A woman member of the audience moved that the auditor's report should also be taken as read, but the chairman argued that clause 111, section 14, sub-section 3 of the Act, laid stress on the necessity of this report’s being read. Furthermore . . . A Voice (apparently intoxicated): You’re a bit long-winded, anyhow. Gravely the chairman rebuked the interjector and called upon the auditor, Mr. Knotta S. Leuth, to read his report, his voice being almost lost in a hurricane of groans, sneezes and cries from the hall. CHAIRMAN IS OPTIMISTIC; After the auditor's report had been read and commented upon, the chairman delivered his address. He spoke optimistically and his words, to an unprejudiced hearer, seemed full of hope and promise. Apparently the audience; thought so, too, because frantic cheery greeted the conclusion of the speech. The chairman moved the adoption of the annual report and balance sheet, and was seconded by Mr. S. Leuth, who spoke, as usual, through a storm of interjections. Many questions were asked concerning the annual report and the balance sheet. “Would you kindly tell me when you’re going to pay a dividend?” Tlio Chairman: It. is proposed, sir. shortly to make a call and if the call moneys are received promptly, I give you my word as an honourable gentleman that the dividend will be paid promptly. ’A shareholder pointed out that the purchase money outstanding to the New Zealand Government for the Arapuni plant was £2,200.894. Surely, he claimed, considering the value of the assets, that was an unnecessarily large item. The Chairman (kindly): Ah. but it*s the Government, remember. One most support local industries. Another shareholder discussed the value of the turbines and machinery at Arapuni as assets to the company. According to the balance sheet they were worth £ 200, a sum which he alleged to be grossly over-estimated. The chairman’s reply to this statement was lost—perhaps mercifully so. After further questions had been asked and more or less satisfactorily answered, a gentleman sitting near the front of the hall, rose to his feet and alleged that as the secretary had not given seven clear days’ notice of the meeting, the whole of the proceeding was out of order. He moved that the meeting be adjourned sine die. The chairman, after some frantic delving into the text of the Companies’ Act, which he happened to have with him, announced that the claim must be upheld, and consequently he adjourned the meeting “sine die until Monday next.” (Actors in the tragedy: Mr. Adam D. Rosion, Mr. II C. Robinson, F.P.A.N.Z., Mr. Henry Verrie Sharpe, Mr. A. XV. Christmas. A.P.A.N.Z., Mr. Knotta S. Leuth, Mr. F. T. Eyre, F.P.A.N.Z., Mr. Phees Garrun Teed, Mr. G. O. Calder.)