anz result

ANZ released their half year results at 8:00 this morning. I'm not sure the market is going to take it very well today, but we'll see.

Anyway, they have confirmed in their Appendix 4D a $103m provision against a "large commercial property client" but say this is due to a "credit rating change" (p57)

As I have said before, when the credit rating changes on a client, a bank needs to adjust up or down the loss provision it has for that client.

IMO though, the ANZ provision is another clear signal that Centro are about to be granted a debt extension. If ANZ believed that CNP was all about to go to the wall, they would have booked a provision for almost the whole amount of the loan.

I am still of the opinion that ANZ have held back finalising their part of the CNP extension until after their results announcement today. At the call this morning (which you may be interested in joining through the ANZ website), Smith and Marriott can still get away with very giving very few details on this specific provision. If the debt extension announcement had already been made, they would have been grilled a lot harder by the analysts on the specifics.