BNB - Babcock & Brown

[outback]

1. Ignorance.
2. Following professional advice.
3. Ignorance.
4. Not understanding the company, sector, market.
5. Ignorance.


Well that's my excuse anyway. Fortunately the pride has taken a much bigger dent than the wallet.

 

[tigerboi]

Re: BNB-I HEAR THE FAT LADY NOW

Gloating over the demise of this mongrel criminal ponzi scheme?you bet i am in the sincere hope all the punters fully understand what these set ups do...FLEECE SHAREHOLDERS nothing less,all you unfortunate people who lost coin on this rubbish should take it as a solid lesson,dont get bitter get better...

stay away from these debt ridden companies...the last time im going give this mob a bagging,asic should put a microscope right up their sphincters screw them real good like they did to unsuspecting good hard working folk who put money into them...tb

looks like the time is near for this criminal ponzi to go ar5e over as predicted some time ago,next month cnp's turn...still cant fathom why anyone would touch this...tb

very true on this mob,once the dust settles which will be?? there will be opportunities, yep your a lot gamer than me,too risky for my liking as i still think they may be rearranging the deck chairs on the BNB titanic, however they did react swiftly to a possible attack from the long short-short long gang,i would think the sentiment to these types of set ups will see the price head much lower,i reckon they where very lucky they werent among the hit squads early victims, as it gave them much needed time to re-borrow & spread it,interesting to see how they go in the next 3 months...tb

I said last week this was the next house of cards to go & i see they are furiously covering their vunerable arses from the shorters hit squad,they all got the same problem,debt to expand & with the banks wanting the bat & ball back its only a matter of time before they cant take from here to prop up this staple..always very dodgy using debt...

 

[waz]

I was doing some quick calculations in my head.

BNB has approx 2500 employess, lets say that each employee earns an average of $1,000 per week. It will actually be more for BNB, im just using 1,000 for ease of calculation.

I also know that BNB pays its employess monthy.
So 2,500 x 1,000 x 4 weeks = $10mil

BNB needs at least 10mil a month to pay its employees. If it does not have this by pay day, then I guess the employees arnt gonna bother to turn up for work.

Once you add in all the other day to day costs of runing a business, office rental, electricity, etc. BNB needs at least $20mil in cash every month to stay alive.

You can see why companies like to pay monthly instead of weekly or fortnightly. Unpredictable CASHFLOW.

 

[prawn_86]

Waz,

BNB recently said they are cutting half their staff. Not sure if it is effective immediately, or if some have already left.

 

[waz]

Getting rid of 60% of your staff will have an even greater impact to your short term cashflows.
60% x 2500 = 1500

1500 x redundancy package = A huge amount of money that its lenders also want a piece of.

Even if you take out the contractors, BNB needs at least 30mil to pay its staff out. Thats being conservative.

 

[webclever]

BNB ask to withdraw SP&P rating.
Is SP&P rating withdrawal is a good sign that BNB might not survive this year?

In general how important is SP&P rating to the movement of SP?

 

[drsmith]

Standard & Poor's has cut BNB's credit rating to CC which is either one or two notches above D.

I won't say what D stands for but a word containing four letters comes to mind.

 

[M34N]

Standard & Poor's has cut BNB's credit rating to CC which is either one or two notches above D.

I won't say what D stands for but a word containing four letters comes to mind.

Dead? :

It's a bad rating to have irrespective of your business, but to be an investment firm and have that rating is probably the worst combination I can imagine.

I wonder where BNB will go to from here now, is there any hope what-so-ever left? They have to resume trading eventually...

 

[waz]

Taken from wikipedia:

The Standard & Poor's rating scale is as follows: AAA, AA, A, BBB, BB, B, CCC, CC, C, D. Anything lower than a BBB rating is considered a speculative or junk.

 

[johenmo]

If I could get my hands on my shares in the old fashioned paper format I'd shred them and sell them as kitty litter. Then they'd be of use. LOL.

wait and see, wait and see....

 

[Mr_T]

A valuable lesson from BNB: That the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Phil Green's brother, Max Green was a thief who was murdered for his actions.

Phil Green is clearly smarter than his brother. He has managed to run a company in an incompetent, dishonest manner yet he was very generously remunerated.

Moral of the story: if someone in a position of power has a very dishonest relative/s, be very very very careful.

 

[banska bystrica]

A scandalous post. Disgraceful. Guilt by blood relations? You need to wake up to yourself and have a think about what you posted.

 

[Mr_T]

A scandalous post. Disgraceful. Guilt by blood relations? You need to wake up to yourself and have a think about what you posted.

I make zero apology for what I have posted.

Phil Green had no involvement in his brother's actions. I do not wish to give the impression he did.

Point is that people in the same family do tend to share similar personality traits. It's not an absolute, it's a tendency. Whether we like it or not that is reality.

Clearly, a lack of integrity is a trait that is common amongst the Green brothers.

 

[chops_a_must]

WTF?

That's right up there with the dumbest thing I've read on ASF today. And going through the property thread, that is quite an achievement.

But seriously... my brother has done some seriously dumb things I am appalled about, and I'm sure it's the same in reverse. How the hell can you be responsible for other people's actions, and judged like you have?

Why not lock up the family members of murderers because they all must be murderers?

Absolutely moronic post.

 

[Mr_T]

WTF?

That's right up there with the dumbest thing I've read on ASF today. And going through the property thread, that is quite an achievement.

But seriously... my brother has done some seriously dumb things I am appalled about, and I'm sure it's the same in reverse. How the hell can you be responsible for other people's actions, and judged like you have?

Why not lock up the family members of murderers because they all must be murderers?

Absolutely moronic post.

Clearly you are one of those people who can only feel better about themselves by putting others down.

So let me explain something to you. In simple terms, since that is clearly what you need.

I said there was a tendency for people in the same family to have similar personality traits. I didn't say it was a certainty. I didn't say people should be punished for what others in the family did.

There is a difference between saying

a) A relative of a criminal should be punished for what their relative did (this is NOT what I am saying, as it is clearly morally wrong to do so).

b) If someone is related to a criminal, some caution is required when dealing with that person as statistically they are more likely to be a criminal than the ordinary Joe (statistically correct).


Understand yet? I don't think you care, you seem to be getting your rocks off abusing me.

If you bother to read some of my past posts, I spent a large amount of time on this forum trying to show people what a dishonestly run company BNB was. I did this when its share price was still $15 or so. If i persuaded even one person on this forum to sell then it was worth the effort.

Now please rack off and take your low self esteem elsewhere, I am not interested in you or your opinion.

 

[adluroil]

Clearly you are one of those people who can only feel better about themselves by putting others down.

So let me explain something to you. In simple terms, since that is clearly what you need.

I said there was a tendency for people in the same family to have similar personality traits. I didn't say it was a certainty. I didn't say people should be punished for what others in the family did.

There is a difference between saying

a) A relative of a criminal should be punished for what their relative did (this is NOT what I am saying, as it is clearly morally wrong to do so).

b) If someone is related to a criminal, some caution is required when dealing with that person as statistically they are more likely to be a criminal than the ordinary Joe (statistically correct).


Understand yet? I don't think you care, you seem to be getting your rocks off abusing me.

If you bother to read some of my past posts, I spent a large amount of time on this forum trying to show people what a dishonestly run company BNB was. I did this when its share price was still $15 or so. If i persuaded even one person on this forum to sell then it was worth the effort.

Now please rack off and take your low self esteem elsewhere, I am not interested in you or your opinion.

Mr T has a good point and also just as a confirmation in some
European countries citizens who applied for jobs in public sevice could only get them if there was no criminal in their family as far back as 4 or 5 generations . This has been long held and proven belief.

 

[basilio]

Mr T's kicking of Phil Green because his brother was a crook seems a bit harsh.

But the real point was that BNB was always dodgy as Mr T consistently said. Phil Green as head honcho was responsible for the creative accounting that made BNB look good but then caused its collapse. Perhaps the important point was that Phil was just a little more "legal" than Max. There are many legal crooks around.

The sticking point is suggesting that just because ones relative is crook the rest of the family should be viewed with suspicion. It seems unfair simply because it is. Each person should be seen as a separate, responsible person. In particular if anyone has a close relative who has done the wrong thing "being tarred with the same brush" seems/is ugly. There is no logic- just prejudice. Very hard to fight against pre-judging or prejudice...

This becomes particularly poignant when one has a close relation who has fallen foul.

In the end the idea that your life could be constrained or ruined because some distant relative was crook is just not reasonable. It simply suits a society with strong lines of people who are "born to rule" and have the capacity to ensure that any black sheep in the family are hidden or denied.

 

[Mr_T]

Looks like the BNB boys are using their influence over BBW to make BBW act in BNB's interests rather than BBW's interest.

What a bunch of crooks. Especially frightening is BBW's buying BNB's management rights when they will get them for free if they just wait a few days.

http://business.theage.com.au/business/more-babcock-wind-hot-air-20081127-6jc0.html?page=1

More Babcock Wind hot air


Surprise, surprise, Babcock & Brown Wind shareholders weren't told the truth about why their main European wind farms were put up for sale. Or they weren't told the truth at BBW's AGM yesterday - this is a Babcock and Brown company, so it's hard to be sure where the truth is.

Press coverage of BBW's AGM seems to have been largely written out of BBW media releases and thus doesn't quite tell the full story of this bemusing exercise in backtracking and backside covering, never mind the sudden discovery of very basic corporate governance.

For a start, there was the proposal to increase the share buyback to a massive 30% of the company. Last week I thought I was being a little facetious in suggesting BBW's strategy taken to its logical conclusion would see it disappear up its own fundament in a puff of its own wind (here). Maybe not.

The proposal was passed but some shareholders at the meeting seemed to smell a rat, or at least Babcock and Brown, when they wondered if such a large buyback would mainly be used by substantial shareholders to clear the decks. BNB has 11% of BBW. BNB is desperate for cash. Join the dots.

The current 10% buyback has been spectacularly unsuccessful in supporting the share price, but it did allow Deutsche to unload 17 million BBW securities earlier this week.

Then there was the hilarious haste professed by the board and management to enter into negotiations with BNB to buy BBW's management rights.

Damned if I know why BBW would be in a hurry unless they are so hooked on paying BNB vast amounts of cash, they're desperate for another fix. They only have to wait a day or two for the receivers to arrive at the mothership and BBW should be able to internalise its management much more cheaply. Indeed, some genuinely innovative footwork by BBW's newly-aligned managers could make it free: they could resign en masse from the management company and seek direct employment at BBW.

(One shareholder noted BBW paid BNB $180 million in fees last year - about a third of BBW's current market capitalisation. BBW's independent directors have all the credibility of Babcock satellite company independent directors.).

The wind in Spain

But the bit I would have found particularly galling if I had been a shareholder was the new reasons given for flogging off BBW's Portuguese and Spanish wind farms.
From the announcement in February (in unison with BNB) until yesterday, BBW's board and management have strenuously maintained its policy of "selling the farm to prove the farm was worth owning'' was all about "demonstrating and capturing'' the unrecognised value of BBW's assets.

But when quizzed by a shareholder about why they were selling off such good assets - selling the things investors had bought into BBW to own - BBW came up with entirely new reasons.

Now BBW says the Spanish wind farm operation is a dog - a low-yielding asset that didn't produce and economic return. That's a little at odds with the glowing picture painted in previous reports. I'm not sure it was the smartest thing to say when the sale hasn't settled yet.

And there was an entirely new story on the Enersis Portuguese operation owned 50/50 with the collapsing BNB.

As I've suspected from the outset, rather than being about "demonstrating and capturing value'', there was a hidden agenda that involved BNB.

CEO Miles George (an employee of BNB, at least for the time being) admitted Enersis was a "good asset'' but it "had some other difficulties for us''.

Three options

Turns out what really drove BBW's decision to sell was BNB's need to sell its half. George told the meeting that BNB's move meant BBW had three options: sell out as well, remain at 50%, or move to 100%.

The 50 and 100% options would have meant "we were taking on future obligations that in the current environment we didn't think were prudent''.

So that's why BBW sold the best performing asset in its portfolio - because BNB was selling. The "future obligations'' weren't spelt out, but this is a Babcock satellite.

What also wasn't spelt out was what "certain assets'' BBW is currently negotiating in great haste to buy from BNB. My general observation is that you can generally pick up assets from receivers more cheaply but, hey, these are Babcock people.
The meeting's final joke was the enthusiasm of the board and management to be rid of the Babcock and Brown name and for management to be paid by BBW and have their interests "aligned'' with BBW shareholders.

Well, there's not much point in being paid in BNB shares any more.

As of yesterday BBW has a new independent chairman. Aside from restraining his management from paying BNB any more money, his first duty should be to rid the company of the directors who have been happy to take fees under the Babcock regime and then get BBW to do what it was supposed to do: own and operate a diversified portfolio of wind farms instead of being a reactive and subservient cash cow for a dubious bunch of financial engineers.

 

[Mr_T]

Mr T's kicking of Phil Green because his brother was a crook seems a bit harsh.

But the real point was that BNB was always dodgy as Mr T consistently said. Phil Green as head honcho was responsible for the creative accounting that made BNB look good but then caused its collapse. Perhaps the important point was that Phil was just a little more "legal" than Max. There are many legal crooks around.

The sticking point is suggesting that just because ones relative is crook the rest of the family should be viewed with suspicion. It seems unfair simply because it is. Each person should be seen as a separate, responsible person. In particular if anyone has a close relative who has done the wrong thing "being tarred with the same brush" seems/is ugly. There is no logic- just prejudice. Very hard to fight against pre-judging or prejudice...

This becomes particularly poignant when one has a close relation who has fallen foul.

In the end the idea that your life could be constrained or ruined because some distant relative was crook is just not reasonable. It simply suits a society with strong lines of people who are "born to rule" and have the capacity to ensure that any black sheep in the family are hidden or denied.

I can see both perspectives.

On the one hand, you are right. Everyone is an individual, they should be judged on the merits of their actions, not the actions of others.

On the other hand, reality is reality. And the reality is that relatives do tend to share personality traits. Who would you rather trust with your money? Take 2 otherwise identical people, with one difference. The first one comes from a family with no history of dishonesty, the second one comes from a family of crooks. I know which one I'd rather trust with my money.

These are complex issues with no simple answers.

 

[arlee123]

Lessons learnt from BNB, cut your loss!!!! I should have cut my loss when BNB is down 10, 20,30% instead of now.....99%......