Not a bad article not a good article, at least it shows a little...

Not a bad article not a good article, at least it shows a little leadership - finally.

A quick dissection:

1."If we can address the balance sheet correctly, we have a good future.

Never like "if's" from a chairman. It shows that he doesn't know whether it will be possible to address the said balance sheet. He should say "when", show some committable confidence as the new CM.

2. Mr Cooper said simplicity and transparency would be the central pillars of Centro Mark 2.

"The Centro model is far too complex and we need to simplify it so it is understood by all stakeholders,"

Yep I think everyone will agree with that one, no-one knows what kind of mess CNP is in hence the SP.

3. Centro was looking at a range of alternative models but had not yet settled on an approach, he said.

"It's something we are working through carefully, but quite rapidly."

Not rapidly enough, for my liking.

4, "On sales, we're testing the market and we will see where that ends up."

So no asset sales soon then?

I know its all semantic, but thats all we've got to work on.

The DOW is in a very bad place today hovering over the 11K range almost to the lows of mid credit crunch - doesn't bode well.