There is $182,483 Million of Goodwill on the balance sheet, I'd...

There is $182,483 Million of Goodwill on the balance sheet, I'd bet $100 Mill or there abouts is garbage.

Sins of the past still haunt the business.

The yanks do Time and Expenses projects and not lump sum - they are the fire brigade of environmental issues. It's a good business but they are small fry in a big pond.

The aid business makes 2 fifths of nothing but makes the APAC business look like worse than dreadful. In this game you need a diversified portfolio of projects and you can't live of small projects. Otherwise you compete with single operators and you don't need to have a huge office to operate. I'm a solo operator in this space and I can find more capability in my network for 1/3rd the cost of Cardno.

They do not do big projects only small packages as they don't have the muscle or the cost base. Even covering insurances on big jobs now means you need great business systems or you need to have a unique skillset that's in demand. People use Cardno when everyone else is busy. They have become confused as to what they stand for.

That said, there are always some good parts of the business and I think they are good in the geotech space and they killed a great synergy by getting rid of their software and materials testing business. That just cut any prospect of growth.

Lame duck business.

Crescent are the Gordon Gekko in this, they will fiddle the buy backs until they own it all, that way they use the company money to inflate their share price. They will then flog it off to the next sucker. So if you play the game you can make some good money here but it will have nothing to do with good business management.