While they have given a few pointers in the activities statement...

While they have given a few pointers in the activities statement - without seeing the specifics of the cash flow statement , it is not definitive to say that we have received the $11.028 million in GST and other taxes payable by the respective Provincial and Federal Governments.

My guess is that since the budget year end is 31st March and tax returns for the year ended 31st December also have to be settled by this date , that most of that will have to be received no later than April I would have thought.

In terms of the Operating cost increase of 7%, a large contribution of this increase was directly attributable to their treasury activities . More specifically their hedging a fixed $AUD to $USD for export sales revenue most likely in December and thereby not being able to take advantage with the timing of their shipments with the sudden drop of almost 6% in the Aussie between the dates of 3rd April and 8th April. Hopefully they have taken some fwd contracts out during that period where 4 of those 6 days were actually Business trading days.

So I think you might have got yourself a bit mixed up there with your statement that a devaluation in the $USD will be beneficial as this would mean that the Aussies would appreciate relative to the devaluing of the USD and therefore would end up being a negative because we would receive LESS Australian dollar equivalent in sales revenue and hence profit would take a hit accordingly.

What we want is for the Aussie to FALL relative to the USD.

In terms of Capex spend on cash . They stated that they had completed $13 million in capital works to 31st Dec and continued to provide guidance of $20 million for the Full Year to June 30. This would then mean that since they spent $3 million this quarter , we should expect the remaining $4 million in the June Quarter.

Moving forward , we should also see a significant reduction to the $7 million in flow through payments made in the March Quarter and while Merger costs were significant at $4 million , if this is GROSS costs , I would still expect that Piedmont at some stage will still be contributing its 25% of these agreed costs.