Islay, on the mychild.gov.au site it only shows whether there were vacancies or not at any particular child care on any given day. It doesn't show the actual vacancy rate - just a yes/no (unless I'm not looking in the right places). Thus, I would tend to go by the occupancy rates provided by GEM (as mentioned in Jaffaroo's post). As for the share price dipping, I would put that down more to investor sentiment about GEM's debt size than the occupancy rate.
On a side note, I would be quite happy to have the dividend decreased to help pay off some of the debt to a more comfortable level before a possible rise in interest rate over the next year or two (or further). Besides, having more cash to make further acquisitions (which are earnings accretive) would be of greater value to the share price in the longer term. All IMO of course.
Have a nice weekend to all.
Cheers
GEM Price at posting:
$3.18 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
A personalised tool to help users track selected stocks. Delivering real-time notifications on price updates, announcements, and performance stats on each to help make informed investment decisions.
(20min delay)