The markets currently expect one rate cut in the second half of this year and a second early 2025. I think the write downs are due to their being no growth in the businesses. Essentially when they purchase another company, all the assets are recognised on the balance sheet as they are. Whatever they spend above the value of assets will be recognised as goodwill on the balance sheet. The goodwill is essentially the expectation of future earnings. When those earnings fall short of expectations you get write downs. There can be write downs related to interest rates going up if that leads to an increase in bad and doubtful debts, but that's not automatic. Those numbers are still super low for the Aussie banks for instance. If the writedowns for bad and doubtful debts would be recorded against the specific assets, so it would appear as a reduction in their accounts receivable. In this instance the company has advised that they are specifically writing down goodwill due to poor performance.
CI1 Price at posting:
11.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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