permission of shareholders at a special general meeting tomorrow to effect the necessary changes to company by-laws.

President Arthur Haycock said, "The meeting is to approve the by-law changes to allow the directors to authorise the re-purchase of shares at the times that circumstances permit.

"After that special general meeting, we will have to go back to the directors to decide how to proceed from there. The intent is to enable the company to be in a position to buy back shares when the share price drops to a level that makes it worthwhile.

"I suspect this will help to support the market in some measure. It would also allow small shareholders an opportunity to sell their shares, with less expense to them than if they were selling in the normal market.

"If they were selling to a third party and they went to a broker, for example, there would be fees attached. Those with a small number of shares, ten or 20 shares, for example, may pay so much in fees that it might hardly be worth selling.

"So this would enable those shareholders to sell at a much lower cost. And in the long term, it will help to increase the value of the remaining shares because the earnings on a per share basis would tend to be higher with a fewer number of shares outstanding.'' Mr. Haycock noted the company would take precautions to avoid buying back too much, because share buy-backs require the use of company capital.

"So we won't be buying back large numbers of shares. It will be up to the directors to put a limit. There are 4,663,659 common share outstanding. There are also more than 928,000 preferred shares outstanding. They also could be the subject of share buy-backs.'' Mr. Haycock said initially the buy-back scheme would not adversely affect the company dividend, which is at 11 cents per common share, per quarter.