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SCMP Reporter

SADLY, despite our best efforts, we were unable to persuade the editor to send Lai See to attend the shareholder meetings of the Jardine Group companies, probably because this year they're being held in the Bermuda.

  This is the once-a-year opportunity for Jardines' shareholders to meet the management of their companies. Until last year, they were held in the Mandarin Oriental hotel and other Hong Kong venues.

 This year the venue is the Princess Hotel, 76 Pitts Bay Road, Hamilton, Bermuda.

  Because we weren't there, we don't know if there was a full and frank exchange of views, or whether it was just Henry and Simon Keswick sitting in a hotel room together drinking Earl Grey tea, putting the Jardines chop on documents as fast as they could before lunch.

  However, a flavour of events can be gathered from the timing of announcements made to the London stock exchange.

  Here's what happened:   10 am (Bermuda time): Dairy Farm International Holdings annual general meeting (AGM) starts.

  10.38 am: Dairy Farm announces AGM over, all resolutions proposed by management were passed.

  11 am: Hongkong Land Holdings AGM starts at same venue.

  11.15 am: Hongkong Land announces AGM over. All resolutions proposed by management passed.

  Noon: Mandarin Oriental AGM starts.

  12.23 pm: Mandarin Oriental International announces AGM finished. Shareholders have approved all resolutions.

  Somehow we get the feeling that these meetings weren't exactly lively discussions of company policies.

  Jardines AGMs never were. Attendance this year was 'about half a dozen' according to the company - not very different from when they were held here.

  Like rabbits  THE Hong Kong Society of Accountants yesterday issued a paper entitled Into the 21st Century, an innocent name for a document with an agenda - to flood the territory with accountants.

  There were 9,154 qualified professional accountants in the territory as of yesterday afternoon, almost exactly double the number five years ago.

  Given that they're accountants, it could be expected their strategy document would give projections for how many accountants we'd have by 2000, but they don't. Why the omission?   Perhaps it's because based on current trends, by 2005 there would be enough accountants to fill Hong Kong Stadium.

  And by the year 2020 things are getting really serious, with one in 18 people in the territory being accountants.

  By the time this year's accountancy graduates are putting their feet up in retirement, accountants will make up nearly half the territory's population and they'll be reduced to counting and recounting the paper clips in their desks.

  Flown the coop  PROPERTY firm Gold-Face Holdings had good news for shareholders yesterday: 'Gold-Face continues to achieve steady turnover and growth.'   What the company neglected to point out, and few will have noticed, is that this is because it has changed its accounting policies.

  This is not the same as fiddling the figure. Perish the thought.

  Previously, the firm took the profit on a property development when it was finished.

 Now, it starts booking profits while its developments are still a mudpit full of cement mixers and occupation permits are just a distant dream.

  'The directors consider the new policy gives a fairer presentation of the performance of the group because it relates development profits to their underlying sales and construction activities,' the firm says.

  One wit has come up with a pithier description: 'Accounting the chickens before they're hatched.'   Geobroker  THE little biographies that companies have to produce about their directors have provided few surprises, just lists of banking and law qualifications.

  But not Mansion House. Their director David Lung King-chuen turns out to be a 'recognised expert' in fung shui, his biography says.

  Given that this is a firm of stockbrokers, this could prove very useful.

  Wanderlust  WANDERING around last week's travel exhibition at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, John Lawrence of Baguio Villas came across a travel company based in China.

  'Bet you won't dare print its name,' he challenged.

  Of course we will, John. We're happy to report that it is the China Posts and Telecommunications International Travel Service.

  What we won't do is print the logo, which has a somewhat unfortunate way of presenting the initials.



Jardines all out by lunch in Bermuda test