I see your point regarding the value of Thiess, however I think...

I see your point regarding the value of Thiess, however I think it's a mistake to not pay much attention to a company's balance sheet. Looking at the latest set of accounts Cimic actually have negative retained earnings, which means they've paid out more in dividends over time than they have made in profits, obviously a practice that isn't sustainable long term without raising capital. This has mostly come about because of all the surprise writedowns (like this one), smashing profits, profits that have previously had dividends paid out of them, but then the profits have turned out to be, well, not profits, or at least, much smaller profits. This announcement has cemented my previous scepticism, I would like to see the factoring balance and supply chain finance completely paid out before thinking about getting into this - I see the $1.8bn factoring balance as additional cash flow they wouldn't have generated at that point (which would mean borrowings or cash would be $1.8bn worse) had they simply used normal practices of waiting until debtors paid them before counting the cash.

Are they selling the golden goose and keeping the less profitable arms? These massive writedowns mostly seem to be construction related, although I'm sure they have problems in contract mining from time to time but they don't seem to be on the same scale financially as these types of announcements.