The Director's declaration was accurate at the time. Your looking at it with the benefit of hindsight.
It's no different that a person with 2 mortgages over a home and rental property who is negatively geared. As long as the cash flow comes in, you can service the debt, no matter how bad it looks on paper. When that person loses their job, and their cashflow, then it looks exactly the same. They can't service the debt and the bank forecloses if they believe theres a low chance of debt recovery.
Had VAH's cashflow continued, they would have been able to service the debt and pay them as they fell due. They had $3,118 billion in revenue and income for the half year. Yes they were using their cash balance to live, but it was buying them time to cut costs and they and $1.107.6 billion in liquidity at the time.
But VAH lost it's job. It applied for the JobSeeker's benefit and it was turned down.
The additional $1.4 billion in debt I suspect is the credit card bill that it was using for living expenses. It would have been paid off had the VAH kept it's job and cashflow going. The $450 million to employees will be things like annual leave and other entitlements. I would not be surprised to see that figure come down.
But as you all were.. back to kicking a Virgin while their down...
