§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for Industry whether he will publish in the Official Report a table showing for each year since 1952 the proportion of borrowing financed by bank advances in the case of all companies and manufacturing, respectively.
§ Mr. David MitchellThe information which is available on a comparable basis for all industrial and commercial companies and for manufacturing companies is given in the table below. The figures are on the basis of gross borrowing less redemptions or repayments each year. Borrowing is defined as bank borrowing, debentures, other loans and mortgages—but see footnote (c).
The figures have been obtained from the regular analyses of listed United Kingdom companies' annual published accounts. The number of companies covered has varied from nearly 3,000 in the earlier years to around 1,000 of the larger ones for the more recent years. Around two-thirds were companies 131W whose main activity was manufacturing. Companies whose activities were mainly overseas have been excluded from the analysis.
The figures are not fully comparable in coverage from year to year because of changes caused by, for example, acquisitions, and liquidations have affected the composition of the panel of companies. Moreover the panel was
BANK ADVANCES AS A PERCENTAGE OF BORROWING FOR LARGE LISTED COMPANIES (a) Manufacturing, distribution and certain other services (b) Short-term loans (c) Manufacturing Short-term loans (c) Excluded Included Excluded Included 1952 -169 ֵ -32 ֵ 1953 -215 ֵ -130 ֵ 1954 25 ֵ 11 ֵ 1955 44 ֵ 41 ֵ 1956 41 ֵ 42 ֵ 1957 25 ֵ 24 ֵ 1958 18 ֵ 4 ֵ 1959 49 ֵ 33 ֵ 1960 82 ֵ 89 ֵ 1960* 84 ֵ 93 ֵ 1961 63 ֵ 63 ֵ 1962 21 ֵ 19 ֵ 1963 42 ֵ 34 ֵ 1964 45 ֵ 48 ֵ 1964* 45 ֵ 48 ֵ 1965 47 ֵ 50 ֵ 1966 27 ֵ 28 ֵ 1967 9 ֵ 9 ֵ 1968 29 ֵ 23 ֵ 1969 58 ֵ 60 ֵ 1969* 55 45 55 44 1970 57 43 57 43 1971 -25 -23 -44 -43 1972 34 29 8 7 1973 63 57 66 61 1974 92 78 92 80 1974* 95 79 93 81 1975 -34 -18 1 1 1976 74 71 72 66 1977 49 48 51 52 * Comparable in coverage to the following year. ֵ Indicates not available. Notes: (a) All listed companies up to 1960. (b) See Business Monitor MA3—Company Finance for a full list of all the industries. (c) Short-term loans other than bank loans. Before 1969 these loans were included indistinguishably with trade creditors. Source: Various issues of Business Monitor MA3—Company Finance and the publications that preceded it, as listed at the back of MA3