Posts tagged as:

babcock & brown

Move Over Buffett, B&B Strike Deal of the Millennium

by Kris Sayce on December 4, 2008

Hooray! Phoenix from the flames. Back from the dead. The resurrection. Off life support.

You’ve guessed it, our friends at Babcock & Brown [ASX: BNB] are back trading again this morning after a two week trading suspension.

And what do you know, they have roared back with a vengeance. As we write, the company’s shares are trading at the giddy height of 51 cents. That, readers, is a 100% increase from the price it last traded at before the suspension.

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Running For The Exit

by Kris Sayce on November 25, 2008

Maybe it’s because we weren’t on the ball yesterday morning. It was a Monday after all. But in the afternoon we got around to reading about the two Babcock & Brown directors that had resigned - Dieter Rampl and Joe Roby.

Joe Roby has an impressive CV. He has been Chairman Emeritus of Credit Suisse First Boston, an adviser to the Harvard Business School, and a director of the New York Stock Exchange and Advanced Micro Devices.

Dieter Rampl’s CV is pretty good too. He is chairman of the Italian bank Unicredit, a director of the Bayerische Borse and director of Bayern Munich Football Club.

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The End for Babcock & Brown?

by Kris Sayce on November 20, 2008

Shares of Babcock & Brown went into a trading halt at the open this morning. The reason? The company is in a dispute with one of its banks about the release of a deposit held with it. According to the notice to the market, it is for “a material amount.” We can assume it isn’t $50 or $100.

We know that one of its bankers is ANZ. According to the last annual report, B&B had $2.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the bank.

For what reason would the bank not release the cash? Perhaps it has something to do with the Net Assets on the last balance sheet being only $2.5 billion. Could the bank be thinking that B&B isn’t going to get a full price from all the asset sales that would cover the outstanding loans?

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China Shows the World How to Stimulate

by Kris Sayce on November 11, 2008

Australia bails out economy - Bad.

US bails out economy - Bad.

Europe bails out economy - Bad.

China bails out economy - Good.

Well, not quite. For a start, the AU$849 billion ’stimulus package’ proposed by the Chinese sounds like a lot of money. And it is. It is more than the US government is spending on its TARP initiative to bail out the credit market.

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