"The point the writer is making is that Centro's problems do not...

"The point the writer is making is that Centro's problems do not fall into the same category as the other high profile "bad boys"."

Yes they do, actually. Centro's problem, as you point out, is one of being recklessly over-geared at precisely the wrong time. This is exactly the same root cause of their problems as it is with other high-profile casualties, such as MFS/Octaviar, Allco, Babcock and ABC Learning. I'd argue that the only common thread linking these high-profile casualties together is the fact they were all recklessly over-geared.

For Alan Jury (Chanticleer) to suggest that Centro wasn't engaged in 'financial engineering' suggests Jury wasn't familiar with the nature of Centro's business model. There is no other way Centro could turn one dollar of equity at the headstock level into $10 worth of property assets at the CMCS fund level, and boast an ability to maintain effective fund control, without 'financial engineering'.