Vickers Limited - Reorganization and Financial Reconstruction

Reorganization and Financial Reconstruction

At the sixtieth Annual General Meeting on 29 April 1927 at the River Don Works, Sheffield, the chairman, General Herbert Lawrence, reported that the ordinary dividend would be passed because of the Coal Strike. His review gave the activities of the main groups of operations divided under five main heads:

Armaments and shipbuilding

Heavy engineering

these two activities are carried on mainly at works in Sheffield, Barrow, Erith, Dartford and Weybridge

Rolling-stock —Metropolitan Carriage Wagon and Finance Company

Electrical —Metropolitan-Vickers

Miscellaneous —They had disposed of Docker Brothers Limited. He had reported last year that an internal reorganization was in progress to deal with those subsidiary branches which proved a heavy drain on financial resources.

This internal review led to the retention of the rolling stock group: Metropolitan Carriage Wagon and Finance Company and The Metropolitan -Vickers Company and the disposal of:

• Vickers-Petters Limited
• British Lighting and Ignition Company (manufacture of BLIC magnetos) —shut down
• the Plywood department at Crayford Creek
• Canadian Vickers
• William Beardmore and Company
• Wolseley Motors (losses since the Armistice were in excess of £1.25 million and unable to pay creditors the company was being compulsorily wound up by the court).

Subsequently Vickers carried through a financial reconstruction scheme which after making additional reserves for contingent liabilities reduced their assets by £12.5 million and their total balance sheet from £34.7 to £22.2 million.