michelmore, page-2

Michelmore visits Macquarie fairly regularly in the normal course of business and one would hope that he too (especially him) would recognise that OXR has been massively belted to levels way below sensible values. OZ definitely needs to makes aquisitions in bulk metals while the going is fairly cheap and while they have (a) cash, (b) borrowiing capacity (in fact, having no borrowings is stupid), (c) while banks still have the capacity to lend and (d) while there are excellent assets available (e.g. non-core RIO). A share buy-back will bring short term relief, but is not necessarily a sound long term growt strategy unless (a) there is nothing else to do with the excess cash and/or (b) there are no cheap/cash flow positive companies to buy. I expect that the Macquarie visit has something to do with borrowing arrangements for the upcoming deal.