Buying SGH, page-167

Rough rule of thumb - H17 employee expenses totaled $167M. Cash flow payments to suppliers and employees totalled $426M. This suggests that supplier payments for the half were $259M. Take away then the bits like advertising ($44M), rent ($13M), admin ($37M) and consultants ($11M), etc and you're left with $154M which was paid in respect of Payables, yet the actual Payables balance only decreased by $34M during the Half.

So, just concentrating on the Payables alone and bringing them forward by one month (one-off) likely would see a sudden $26M outflow occur. Add to that the other amounts ($105M), and you get to a further $18M monthly outflow. Add to this payroll at upwards of $28M++ and you get higher still. Then, there's the interest etc. And on top of this, tax.

Looking however at the H17 CF statement and one of the primary benefits to operating cashflow was an amount of $9.2M in tax received. Now, imagine if this hadn't been received.

Right at this veyr moment, cash is very precious.

As for NWNF matters, true enough, except I've already commented elsewhere regarding the risks to NWNF matters either being paid from settlement or whether such payments might well be construed as preferential payments in certain circumstances. The position is therefore nowhere near as clear or certain as is being suggested. Beyond this, even if the barristers are going NWNF there is still the matter of the disbursements having to be paid. TAC and VWC might pick up some of these but certainly not all of them, or indeed anywhere near all of them.

As for the Payables themselves, there is simply no way that the Company should still have had $431M in H17 end Payables. Not with the amounts that they had been paying.