sparcs noteholders meeting, page-5

There is a really sour taste in NZ for anything that has Babcock and Brown attached to it. Whilst I am sure this is also the case in Australia, it is a different sort of feeling in NZ. More of a deep rooted paranoia really. Bond is a really dirty word here at present. If I set the word "bond" in a social situation here, I would get all sorts of dirty looks and there would be deep intakes of breath.

And bear in mind BNB only had bonds listed here, not shares. So anything else that is also a bond that is even remotely BNB related sets off all the bells and whistles (and that is why you could buy both sets of BBI bonds so cheaply in January and February. I begged my family to buy some of these at this time and there were heated discussions. They were so concerned that they almost arranged an "intervention" to save me from myself. Now I am baking them all a very unpalatable humble pie for them all to eat.)

So, if a council shareholder voted to roll over their SPARCS bonds on the new terms and BBI subsequently fell by the wayside, well then they would be villified totally for that decision, jobs would be lost, heads would roll. So, on a self preservation basis, it looks like they were prepared to take their chances with converting to shares and selling them on market upon issuance.

Bear in mind that right now these bonds are trading at 30 cents on the dollar and will otherwise be valued as such in the books of these public bondholders. Rather than having to write down all of their holding to 30 cents, they have now (in theory anyway) just recovered an additional 50 cents of value by converting, with a reasonable possibility of converting another lot in November as well. They don't give a rats about the long term viability of the company. They are not ords holders (well they are now) so they have no loyalties to BBI shareholders. As far as they are concerned, 50 is bigger than 30, with another crack at 50 not far away. And they voted accordingly.

Nothing to do with Corus. Probably never heard of it. All to do with self interest.