Williams Industries Inc.
Chairman’s Report to the Shareholders
For the year ended December 31 st 2008
Ongoing policy
No change. We will continue to look for investment opportunities that have long-term profit and foreign exchange earning potential and projects that create additional throughput for our core companies will be favored. Our objective continues to be to earn more foreign exchange than we use. We will continue to invest in new technology and equipment where necessary, to improve the efficiency of our manufacturing businesses and widen their product ranges to satisfy market demand. We will continue to focus on long term capital growth while maintaining our policy to pay approximately 25% of our profit after tax, excluding capital gains until they are converted to cash, in dividends to our shareholders and a similar amount as profit sharing to all the people who work to make our businesses successful. We will not compromise quality in our products to increase short-term profits, but will always base our decisions on enhancing long-term customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. We believe our products are the best quality of their type available anywhere and we will strive to maintain this.
Commitment to our team members and our community
At the end of 2008, Williams Industries Inc. issued 114,500 new shares valued at $914,855 to 59 employees for long service ranging from 10 to 30 years. In addition, $3,464,931 was distributed in the form of profit sharing to all those who contributed to the management and operation of the businesses. We also donated $239,767.34 to charities that assist children and the elderly, $136,218.56 to community development projects, $350,819.73 to sponsor sport, $13,559.73 to academic scholarships, $50,000 to the Tourism Development Corporation, $32,150 to political parties and $86,218.55 to sponsor miscellaneous events in 2008. This brought the total value delivered to those who contribute to our success and our community by our policy of sharing with and caring for them to $5,152,300.30 in 2008. It is unlikely that we will be in a position to assist as much as this in 2009.
The future
The year 2008 saw the beginning of a recession arrive on our island. This is expected to get much worse in 2009 and possibly 2010 when it is entirely possible that our profit will be reduced to half what it was in 2008 as we try to keep all of our people employed even if this means reducing the number of hours worked per week. In spite of this we will continue to venture into different businesses in an effort to diversify our company. We expect to encounter challenging and risky situations and we will not be successful in all that we set out to do but I believe the systems of management control that we have developed over the years will see us through. Our human resources are being stretched thin at present to deal with all of the projects and investments that we are working on but our system automatically rewards good and penalizes poor performance so this will help us to keep focused. This system combined with the quality of our people will ensure that we will continue to out perform our competitors. As we continue to refine this and apply it
wherever possible to new and existing business I am confident that our company will continue to grow. I believe that as long as we are fair to our suppliers, our customers, our bankers and our team members and we continue to genuinely care about the communities where we do business we will be blessed and assured of success in whatever we do. We must thank God for the blessings that have been bestowed on our businesses and commit ourselves to strive for excellence in everything that we do as we work to build a stronger nation.
