With the best of intentions, I would urge you to take a more...

With the best of intentions, I would urge you to take a more financially sophisticated view of what is happening.

There are numerous banks who have (in total) billions of dollars at stake in Centro. If the company was to collapse, it would rank as one of the largest corporate failures in Australian history and would have repercussions across our entire financial system. The administration and liquidation of the company will take around 5 years and will cost millions and millions of dollars in fees. The banks will only recoup a part of their investment and some may receive nothing at all.

There is no evidence to suggest at this stage that Centro is unable to meet the ongoing interest repayments on the debt and whilst this continues bankers are unlikely to pull the pin on the company. If we get some hard evidence that this situation has deteriorated, then it will be time to panic.

Whilst there is a sizeable amount of debt due later in the year, Centro has made some progress in selling assets. We know CAF is under conditional contract, an additional $195m has also been sold, the 4 CAWF properties may sell prior (~$1.3bn) and the remainder of CAWF may go also (~$1.2bn).

This is in keeping with the strategy that Centro outlined from day 1.

I haven't seen the JP Morgan report, but I imagine they are referring to the sum total of what might be possible in the coming weeks. This could amount to $3.5bn dollars if all goes well, even if it's not all 'across the line' by the deadline.