BBI might have had a lot of hard assets, but they also had a lot more debt, both at the asset level and the corporate level. And the banks were saying they would not roll that debt over.. So BBI was squeezed on several angles.
Elders on the other hand has had its debt rolled over, Elders' continuing operations are now cashflow positive and mildly profitable. Elders is just a bit over-geared. So the banks will force Elders to either do another equity raising or sell the Futuris car interior business(despite saying no longer being pursued). It will take too long to pay down debt sufficiently by just using retained profits. I have a feeling some kind of restructuring is in the works currently.. you can tell by the lack of communication from the company confirmin having the debt covenants re-set following the breaches created by the forestry asset writedown. ie. it wasn't as easy to get the banks to change the covenants as the CEO thought it would be.. I think the fact that he appeared to not to clear the covenant resets with the banks before he announced the forestry writedowns demonstrates incompetence in itself..
ELD Price at posting:
24.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
