THE CUBA REVIEW 



Annual Report of the Manati Sugar Company 



For the Fiscal Year Ended October 31, 19^21 



New York, December 29, 1921. 

 To the Stockholders of Manati Sugar Company. 



The Board of Directors hereby submits its Annual Report of the Business of the 

 Company for the eighth fiscal year ended October 31, 1921. 



Grinding operations started on December 16, 1920, and finished on June 24, 1921. A 

 arger crop could have been made but in view of the surplus of sugar that was likely to 

 remain in Cuba unsold, it was thought advisable to stop operations on that date. 



Your Company was fortunate in being able to dispose of its 1919-1920 crop as explained 

 in the last Annual Report, but it was impossible to foUow the same pohcy this year, owing 

 to the control of the 1920-1921 crop by the Sugar Finance Committee as explained further 

 3n, and there were on October 31, 1921, at the end of fiscal year, 162,144 bags of this year's 

 production unsold. Your Company was not alone in this, however, most of the planters 

 Dcing left with a considerable part of their crop unsold. 



The past year or more has been the most eventful period in the history of sugar the 

 svorld over, because of the wide fluctuations in prices and the consequent effect upon all 

 sugar companies. 



With raw sugar reaching as high a price as 22 p2C. c. & f . per pound in the Spring of 1920 

 ind declining to 3>^^c. in December of the same year and then advancing in ISIarch, 1921, 

 to 5I4C., followed by a rapid decline to 2c. prevailing now, it is easy to see what difficulties 

 have had to be overcome by every producer during that period. 



When low prices prevailed in January last, many of the Cuban and x\merican planters 

 appealed to President Menocal for some means to help the situation that was deterring them 

 from starting grinding operations. This appeal resulted in President Menocal creating the 

 Sugar Finance Committee for the purpose of selling, in an orderly manner, the sugars of 

 the 1920-1921 crop that had not been sold prior to the date when the Committee com- 

 menced to function. 



Immediately the Sugar Finance Committee was formed, confidence was restored and 

 bankers no longer refused to make advances on sugar; the result, unfortunately, was that 

 Cuba practically made the largest crop in its history. 



During the Summer of 1920 and later, your Company made sales of 138,000 bags of 

 sugar, against its 1920-1921 production, at an average price of 7.53c. c. & f. per lb. It was 

 because of these sales made in advance that the average price of this year's crop (taking the 

 unsold sugars at 2>^c. c. & f. per lb.), was 4.228c. f. o. b. per lb., which under the circum- 

 stances must be considered satisfactory. 



The advantages derived by your Company because of these advance sales would have 

 been greater had the colonos not participated therein, but, on the other hand, it is doubtful 

 whether the Company would have been willing to sell ahead as much sugar as it did, had it 

 not been that the Company's contracts with its colonos provide that the latter shall share 

 in the average price obtained by the Company. 



Since the end of the fiscal year 25,183 bags of sugar have been sold through the Sugar 

 Finance Committee, leaving on hand, at the present time, 136,961 bags. Should this 

 sugar be sold at a price, lower or higher, than 2i^c. as valued in the Balance Sheet, the 

 colonos will participate proportionately in the difference in value. 



The high prices prevailing during the Spring and Summer of 1920 brought into this 

 market large quantities of sugar from Far Eastern countries, causing the invisible stock in 

 the United States to reach a much larger total than usual. This, coupled with the increase of 

 316,000 tons in the production of domestic beet sugars, a slight increase from Porto Rico. 

 Cuba's large crop and poor European demand, precipitated a decline to a level much below 

 the cost of production. 



The cUmax to all the calamities that have fallen to the lot of sugar producers, and 

 especially to the Cubans (and seriously interfering with the work of the Sugar Finance 

 Committee in the disposal of the crop), was the increase in the duty on Cuban sugars from 



