Let’s start afresh - it is about future price which is about current perception of profit, page-105

Trying to do some 'back of the envelope' type calculations to work out how the market has AMP priced so I took the table from @tutes post (which again I think I saw this in an article pre-Life/Mature sale) and played around with the numbers (see below for assumptions).  It's pretty (in fact very!) crude but it puts the current SP into perspective:

I've gone pretty hard on the Wealth business earnings reducing by 50% - this is probably over the top as no doubt AMP will look to 'stop the bleeding' as far as run off for the wealth side of things (IOOF issues may actually assist in this - given the alternative isn't much better!).  Not all investors are going to roll into industry funds as some of the media outlets would have you believe.  There's still room for solid investment advice.  For AMP Bank earnings I've reduced these by 20% only because of the headwinds in the market mainly due to falling house prices and credit tightening.  AMP Bank were never massive on IO loans in comparisons to their Big 4 brethren so I think as far as provisioning for loss they will likely be reasonably placed in comparison.  To that bottom line SP figure of $2.29 you can effectively allow for $0.35 to be returned - however until De Ferrari confirms how the c. $1B of capital available will be returned there is obviously going to be uncertainty around this.  I've also allowed for Corporate Capital to be reduced by $1B (effectively allowing for c. $200m of settlements for any pending class actions) - but no doubt the remediation and settlements will be over multiple financial periods (not just FY19) and be funded through a combination of capital/debt.  Holding Company Costs reduced by 30% with the sale of Life & Mature - this was more just an 'estimate' as I'm not sure if these costs will reduce by this much...

So throwing in potentially $0.35 for capital returned (Life & Mature) and another $0.35 (NZ IPO/Spin-off) and you're up around $3 as a 'base starting point' on a 'sum of parts' type calculation which is something that no doubt some of the private equity (and Macquarie) would be well aware of when 'running the ruler' over AMP going forward.  No doubt there analysis is a little less crude and more accurate than mine as well but I think this serves some purpose here given the discussions....

The more I look at this share the more I think that it is primed for a takeover post RC recommendations.  The board knew that their best chance at returning shareholder value is to restructure and cut out the capital intensive parts of their business leaving the 'growth' components ready and waiting for a skilled group to come along and further develop. 

The question is how much would a potential buyer be prepared to pay over this 'baseline' type calculation of SP in order to satisfy both retail and insto investors?