amazing...

I wonder if anyone remembers VRL taking a write-off for its Taiwan assets because of the SARS scare way back when.

They said that the value of the asset had been reduced and needed to "adjest" the value.

The VRL Board (ie the Kirbys) then used that as an excuse to cut the dividend. At that time I stated that in my opinion it was a bunch of plain ole bull s-h-i-t and another ploy to drive down the price of the shares. I stated that the long term value of the asset was not impaired.

Well guess what, now it looks like the VRL board is going to make a good deal of profit on selling that asset and going to use it to buy back shares - in order to pay dividends - so they can pay the loans of the private company the Kirby's own.

So much for protecting shareholders from what IMO was a dubious accounting trick...