Your readers, especially those who are shareholders in the Unipart Group, may like to read this letter, following your story, Unipart make £19.2m profit (Oxford Mail, April 7).
What was not reported was that half that profit was written off when Unipart had a write-down before taxation of £8.5m, relating to the disposal of units, including its UK automotive paint distribution business.
I asked chief executive John Neill an appropriate, constructive and relevant question at the recent annual meeting about the huge cost to company shareholders of this write-down and about the fact that the company was not paying a dividend.
It has been 10 years since one was paid.
Mr Neill was not so much interested in answering my question, but asking how many shares I owned.
Come on, Unipart, surely you welcome constructive questions by a shareholder, who is entitled to attend the annual meeting, irrespective of his or her personal shareholding or class of share, who has the same dividend entitlement and has one vote at a general meeting.
In fact, it was not long ago that Mr Neill wrote encouraging employees to buy even one share.
How times have changed!
MICHAEL HOLDER Collinwood Road Risinghurst Headington Oxford
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