Judgment Suspended
Page 35
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FROM what Sir Philip Warter, chairman, said on Tuesday (page 34) the Transport Holding Company had a good first year. But the figures he gave are too sketchy for firm conclusions. Sir Philip, making an advance statement of the 1963 results, announced profits of over fllfm. How this breaks down he apparentlY did not, say. Did British Road Services exceed their• 1962 net receipts figure of E3-7m.9 Did the Tilling and Scottish bus groups advance on their £6.5m. in the same year?
He said that B.R.S. "carried over 16 m. tons of general merchandise last year ". They have never carried less than that tonnage. However, there are grounds for believing they carried about 4. m. tons more than in 1962. Bearing in mind the terrible early months of 1963 and the general depression in traffics, this is good.
Sir Philip spoke of " the subsidiary and associated bus companies ". He said they owned about 26,000 vehicles and were responsible for almost 4,000 m. passenger journeys last year. Unless there has been a virtual doubling in the trading of the Tilling and Scottish bus groups he added something else in for 1963. Could it have been the B.E.T. group's activities, in which the T.H.C. has a historical financial interest but no operational control? In 1962 the Tilling and Scottish fleets recorded 2,117 m. passenger journeys and had 14,195 vehicles. The T.H.C. chief did go on to say he was a satisfied shareholder in the B.E,T., so there is nothing sinister in his arithmetic—if he did what we suspect. It does not, however, give a truly comparable total.
The Commercial Motor sincerely hopes the T.H.C. did have as rosy a first year as Sir Philip implied. But until the full facts are published in two or three months' time our judgment will be suspended.