i henry c beck com pony and ufoh construe tion company joined together in the forma tion of o new company known as town house inc which will own and operate an eight-story apartment house which is being built in topeka kansas construction work is being performed by a joint venture of beck and utah the building will contain 1 26 apartments and it was financed under section 207 of the national housing act above is pictured the dewatering box at the failings pond which was built for the kennecotf copper corporation a short distance from garfield utah right a view of the zinc fuming plant at corpus christi texas which was completed during this year for amer ican smelting and refining compony our net worth increased during the year by the sum of 1,408,277 this increase resulting from retained earnings brought our net worth to 17,696,734 on october 31 1953 this made the book value equal to 100.83 per share in comparison with 92.81 per share at the close of the last fiscal year the company has inaugurated two plans for its permanent employees the group insurance and hospitalization program provides health accident and life insurance 369 employees are members of this plan and during the past year the plan paid 336 claims affecting 201 employees the cost of this plan to the company was 53,605 equivalent to 0.15 a share after tax the utah construction company retirement plan based on profit sharing had a gain of 19 members during the year bringing the total membership to 224 one member retired during the year the company's contribution was 220,699 equivalent to 0.60 a share after tax