The AFR reported today that the company is suffering from a lack of interest with one analyst saying they couldn't get anyone in Australia interested in it.
The company's complicated recapitalisation was mentioned as one of the factors for the slump in the share price as well as the ongoing recession in Europe which will continue to reduce the earnings of their European ports whilst NGPL is facing a regulatory review of its tariffs when its earnings were already expected to be flat (unchanged from FY09) in FY10.
The article also made mention of the company's website which failed to carry live prices, valuing the shares and volume as zero.When you add the comments attributed to Jonathan Sellar that there was no obvious reason for the 20% fall in share price and that the regulatory review of NGPL was a surprise (even though the last one was way back in 1996) and they don't know why it happened and they are still trying to find out, it seems that management are still asleep at the wheel.
In my opinion it is quite clear that this company should never have been relisted and that if was to continue in any form it should have been privatised. However, given their relisting, a clean-out of the entire BBI management team was the very least they could have done if they were serious in their efforts to try and restore confidence in their company and regain the support of the market and start afresh once again as PIF, although reverting to a previously abandoned name further shows the company's lack of direction and lack of strategy, otherwise they could have chosen a new name and a new management team to go with a new stategy and a new direction. Instead you have the same name as before, and the same management in place, so what's changed and why should people invest in a company that does what this one did to their shareholders?
Two points to finish on before I finish with this company and this particular thread once and for all that were also mentioned in the article are as follows:
First of all the performance of the share price or lackthereof was a strong rebuke to the effort to sell off 40% of the company to Brookfield Asset Management.
Secondly after the company's near collapse under $9.2BN of debt and its association to BNB, Australian-based investors are steering clear of the company even though demand for energy is increasing.
Given what has transpired in recent times nobody can blame them.
BBI Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
