Yeah it was $4, but that was a different company back then -...

Yeah it was $4, but that was a different company back then - theyve managed to grow earnings at a phenomenal rate since 2002/03! Theyve also added quite a few acquisitions to grow the market cap and grow the EPS even further down the line.

When it was $4 it was trading at a PE of 8-10 I remember, and now the PE is 11.85 after todays smashing

EPS growth has been phenomenal. The company has grown in a big way

the mining boom started back then, and the economy picked up massively.

Bottom line , given the EPS (and other fundamentals), the PE is quite conservative at this price!


look the companys got 15-20% growth and a very solid 5 year (warren buffet style) history. profit has grown and EPS too for the last several years each yr. Return on equity grew and then dropped off a little obviously becoz they have been taking over quite a bit over the last 2-3 years. This has involved issuing stock and costs of integration. They also have near 40% debt. Being in such a strong 'growth' phase it was obvious that ROE would be hampered a little with all the acquisitions. But overall , all businesses have grown over the last few years. ROE is pretty much at buffet level of 12-15% anyways depite all the 'growth' and takeovers etc.

Management say the new biz wont be affected by US dowturn

I think given the solid fundamentals of the company, a 10% smahing may have been warranted, but not over 20%!

PE as I said for 2008 EPS is only 11.85 for a company thats delivering outstanding EPS growth and ROE within the 12-15% band.

Soon the market will be looking at 2009 earnings the closer we approach to june 2008

***Given that management was quite bullish all throughout the report and they have been a trusted and reliable management over a long period, id say that the market re-action was over the top!

Probably CFD traders and t1,t2,t3 and margin-traders all contributing to the sell-off

many ppl wouldve been margin called I suspect

We'll see what happens

dont forget this was over $20 once!