eofy commentary

Hi all,

I cant seem to find ANY commentary on the BEC EOFY result bar from the australian Sep 1:

A leaner Becton Property Group sunk $44.3 million into the red for the financial year as the company worked hard to slash debt levels.

The result compared to a loss of $84.4m last year.

Becton's after-tax operating profit was $4.7m for the 12 months to June 30.

The company said it realised a loss of $22.7m from the sale of assets, inventory writedowns of $8.1m and additional financing and restructuring costs of $11m.

However, it managed to cut its debt from $276.3m to $201.9m.

Becton's chief executive officer Matthew Chun said capital management had been the major focus of the past 12 months.

He said the company had increased the term of its funding and secured $115m for the next stage of its Divercity project, a $488m residential and retail development in Waterloo in inner-suburban Sydney.

"It also significantly reduces the cash outlay required to cover interest payments," Mr Chun said.

He said the company could now shift its focus to other cost savings and delivering its projects.

Contribution from its development and construction division rose 112 per cent to $14.8m. Retirement, the other arm of its business, contributed $8.1m in pre-tax earnings -- up 71 per cent on the previous year.

Mr Chun said during the next 10 years Becton had $1.3bn worth of projects located in target markets.

Becton was now well-placed to build on its strengths,which included affordable housing, to take advantage of changing market conditions, he said."


This was accompanied with a picture of a very pained looking Matthew Chun nothing like the previous shots or his confident appearance on boardroom radio (BRR) which set investors such as myself at ease.

I note that this is the first set of annual results that havent come with a boardroom radio piece where Matthew has answered questions and discussed the result.
Is this because things are looking really grim now? Debt dropped by 75mil from 276 to 201 mill which is great so that they can make their interest payments BUT this required a very radical converting debt to equity diluting the current shares on issue to just 5% so what could possibly be left up his sleeve? This option certainly wont be available in the next financial year....