Clayton and Shuttleworth Trading Results.
Page 20
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The 22nd annual report for the year ended December last has just been issued by the directors of Clayton and Shuttleworth, Ltd., of Stamp End Works, Lincoln.
The firm, with others in the Cathedral City, depended largely at one time upon its trade in agricultural machinery and implements with Russia, Roumania, and the Balkans, and whilst this was almost entirely destroyed through the hostilities, there is another discouraging fact in that much former remunerative business with South America has been reduced to negligible proportions through the change in farming methods in that part of the world.
The report states that the profit and loss account for the year shows a debit balance of £12,49, which, after a deduction from the amount of profit brought fromthe last account of £54,914, leaves a balance of profit of
020 £42,445, which sum will be carried forward to the next financial period, the directors report that, although the continued depression is retarding their efforts, considerable progress is being made in establishing the new manufactures undertaken to replace the standard business lost through the war.
Losses on the Continent.
On the outbreak of the war European debts owing to the company and investments in Continental countries amounted to a gross sum of £520,218, and this amount was written off in 1919, as shown by the balance sheet of that year. With the exception of £3,252, the whole of that sum had, in consequence of the war, so far proved irrecoverable. Assuming that the whole of the foreign debts and investments referred to were bad at December 31st, 1914,, the position, as disclosed by the balance sheet at that date, would show a deficiency of £234,952. The position as disclosed by the balance sheet at December 31st, .1922, showed a surplus of £146,335, an improvement of £381,287, accounted for by the capitalization of a portion of the over book values of the company's properties and substantial gifts of properties made by Mr. Alfred Shuttleworth and the late Col. Frank Shuttleworth for the improvement of the company's works and plants between 1910 and 1914.
After Mr. P. W. Rogers took over the management of the company in 1910, and as a result of special action taken on his initiation, a sum of £982,365 was withdrawn between 1912 and 1914 from the company's Austrian undertakings, which enabled the company to repay its outstanding debentures and loans. Had not that been done, further large sums would, under war conditions, have been lost either wholly or in part.