Hi Stayer,Have been thinking about the Tony Boyd article and...

Hi Stayer,

Have been thinking about the Tony Boyd article and your post but had to shake off a virus before I could post sommething (hopefully) sensible.

Just on todays market caps I an getting values on the shareholdings (figures in the millions) of TPM $290, Rural Holdings $41, Clover $15, Brickworks $745, Australian Pharmecutical $30 and the big one New Hope of $3,180 together with the investment portfolio of $507. There is also Souls Private Equity of $90. This is nigh on $4,900 less say $900 million of tax on the New Hope sale.

If I have done my back of the envelope deconsolidations of the consolidated accounts correctly there is about $300 million of cash and term deposits and about $200 million of liabilities in SOL. They are due for $100 million odd dividend from New Hope soon but I have "matched" that with the very roughly estimated $80 million they will be paying to Souls Private Equity shareholders in the takeover.

This gets to be $4,100 of net assets or about $17 a share not counting some of the smaller assets.

Like you I cant see why the Brickworks shareholders should sell out cheaply, also surely they would want SOL script to get capital gains tax roleover relief. If there is demand for a script takeover option then the New Hope sale cash is not a strong a catalyst as the article might suggest. Plus I dont think the Millner's have been sitting around wanting to unwind the cross shareholdings but being held back by a lack of cash.

I see New Hope has about $590 million of franking credits after paying out the latest dividend; that would frank about $1,376 million of dividends, so maybe a dividend could be got out of New Hope to ease the capital gains tax bill. New Hope had $1,600 of term deposit at balance date so the money is there.

Anyhow gives us something to think about.

Cheers