check out the figures, page-7

Lets revisit what happened to the market price of GPT... travelling along on a slow downward trajectory from $3.50 to $2.50... then an announcement about a decrease in earnings.

The top reasons for the decrease in earnings? (In order of most severe to least severe IMHO):

1) Not a good time to sell property we just developed - so we wont - we are better off waiting because we can
2) Because we aren't selling the properties we just developed, we dont have as much capital to recycle, so our interest payments are a bit more than expected
3) Our European JV isn't doing as well as we thought, but its still making us money and we are looking at ways to either get more out of it or.. get out of it.

The shares then dropped a further $1.10 to around $1.40-$1.50 where they are now - in response to this announcement. It is what it is - no more and no less.... it is not an announcement of dire times, a lack of rental returns or a breaching of banking covenants - its as simple as "we reckon we'd get more if we sold later, and we can afford to wait - waiting means that we might pay a little more in interest now - but we reckon it will be worth it in the long run". Sound strategy in my view - I hope this is exactly what they do - as announced - and not more.

In my view, the best way GPT can return value to us shareholders is to be "actionary", not reactionary, not get distracted by the noises coming off the market and market watchers / manipulators, focus on maximising returns out of all assets in its portfolio... buckle down the hatches and be good managers basically.

Doing too much during a storm is usually not as good as buckling down the hatches and waiting for the storm to blow over. It will blow over, and the ship will still be seaworthy, in better weather times. No matter what they do now, they cant fix the bad weather - so no point trying in my view!