The Aussie accounting rules that say that water is an intangible asset create a bias to a statutory loss that effectively is a mark to market that continuously errors on the downside: hence the difference between the market value of the portfolio and the statutory value. If the group ever wants to "create a profit it only needs to sell a small amount of permanent water rights to create profit and close the gap between the two numbers. In the long term you are better off looking at the free cash flow that the group throws off as it is not masked by statutory reporting. They are in a very good position to afford their dividend (see the leased contracts). As a side note unless the water market goes crazy to the upside there will not be performance fees for a good while.... so the "cost" to share holders is VERY reasonable. I suspect this will be one of the more regular dividend payer's in the market and would not be surprised for the shares to rerate as people look for yield....
D2O Price at posting:
$1.36 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
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