by Kris Sayce on November 24, 2008
That seems to be the message coming out of ratings agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. According to the Australian Financial Review over the weekend, “Ratings agencies have indicated they may not apply the federal government’s AAA credit rating to government-guaranteed bank debt.”
We think the whole idea of the government guaranteeing the banks is a mad idea anyway. But it does seem bizarre that the ratings agencies may not rate government backed debt at AAA. Considering the government has control via the RBA of the printing press to churn out money when it needs it, it must be very unlikely for the Australian government to default on a debt obligation.
Even more odd is these are the same ratings agencies that were quite happy to rate billions of dollars worth of US subprime mortgage debt at AAA.
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by Kris Sayce on November 10, 2008
How are does $22 million go in the child care industry? Not far if the company involved is ABC Learning. Unfortunately, the company still hasn’t released its most recent financial results so we have to go back to the last statement released in December 2007.
For the year it had total expenses of $1,057,400,000. Those expenses helped the company to generate revenue of $1,106,900,000. After tax ABC Learning achieved a profit of $37 million. In other words a 3% profit margin.
So based on these numbers the company could eat through the government support money within about 10 days. In reality it won’t as we are sure it will still achieve some revenues of its own.
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by Kris Sayce on August 29, 2008
Lemsip
We are too ill today to make it into the Old Hat Factory, so we make our observations today from the safety of home, comforted by a mug of Lemsip.
ABC Should Have Learned its 123
Its shares continue to be suspended as the company and its auditors trawl through at least the last two years finances to restate the accounts. Even worse than that, there are fears the company will at the very least be put into administration.
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