I think you are right on this, only $8m of retained earnings at half year and now a pre tax loss of 34.5m for second half. However if so perhaps they should have mentioned this, and given an indication of dividends going forward.
Their announcement of 25 August was so poorly worded it is hard to work out what they are really saying. My reading is that they recorded EBITDA of $17 million for 2008, after non recurring and abnormals of $60m, i.e. pre abnormals and non recurring the EBITDA would have been $77M. This does not seem right however given that TPG only contributed in final quarter. Hope that they do a better job of making things clearer on 23 September.
SOT Price at posting:
17.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held