to the stockholders o utah construction company furnace building ond flue line con struction at the zinc fuming plant tor american smelting ond refin ing company at selby california cover depicts iron ore stockpile at the company's mine of iron springs utah showing overhead conveyor system and dozer moving ore to underground conveyor for loading december 20 1952 for the fiscal year ending october 31 1952 utah construction company and its consoli dated subsidiaries earned a net profit of 1,915,818 equivalent to 10.92 a share this represents a decline of 1,031,243 from the preceding year during which the company reported consolidated net profits of 2,947,061 or 16.79 the decline in profits resulted from lower gross profits from our construction activities profits from mining were little changed from the levels of the preceding year gross revenues from con struction activities were well maintained during the year but earnings were substantially reduced by heavy losses incurred in the fulfillment of a construction contract which was finally completed during november 1952 during the fiscal year ending october 31 1952 your company paid cash dividends of 2.50 a share plus 1/20 share of permanente cement stock for each share of utah construction company held this represented an increase of 86c a share in the cash portion of the dividend over the amount paid in the preceding year the financial condition of your company continued to improve during the year strength ened by retained earnings and revised credit arrangements as of october 31 1952 our long-term lia bilities were 3,668,014 a decrease of 1,158,649 during the year working capital at the close of the year was 6,809,565 compared to 5,995,584 a year earlier an improvement of 813,981 during the year the company's consolidated net worth grew from 14,848,570 at the end of last year to 16,288,457 at the close of this year a gain of 1,439,887 the book value per share increased from 84.60 to 92.81