Ann: FY16 H1 Financial Results, page-115

That loss is a great cultural starting point for a transformation. They now have a monopoly position in their market and are going to reform the business to make it a performer using that loss to drive the internal change.

As I understand, the loss in goodwill is esoteric. It has removed the ASIC investigation and will now provide a significant accounting warchest for redundancies and reform. There must also be significant tax benefits from a company accounting perspective.

Lawyers as employees may be litigious. It is pretty hard to argue that the situation is not genuine, company is not suffering, times are not tough and other clichés to resist internal reform. Getting rid of the deadwood is a lot easier.

I do not believe that they are fools that bought a billion dollar loser. Most of that billion dollar loss was a book entry and now they have no competitors and a strong impetus for cost reforms. Goodwill is a accounting trick. It goes up, it comes down. It was the reason for the ASIC investigation. Now it has been used to get rid of the same very worrisome investigation.

They bought out their only competitor.

And you still need a lawyer in the UK for anything and everything. There is only one choice now.