poor performance from abacus today, page-15

At 30 June 2008, ABP's gearing on a covenant basis was 44.97% versus a covenant of 45% (total Liabilities + guarantees / TTA). Hmmm...

Consensus suggests, given the B-grade quality of ABP assets, values will fall 20-25%.

We can all do our own maths but with a tangible asset base of ~$1.60bn at 30 June 08, the race is on to reduce debt (via sales) before the new vals are applied! (yep, recent sales help)

Given the need to re-fi this covenant, one would expect signifcant uplift in cost of debt, significantly impacting cash flow for equity investors (as an exercise, it is worth running through interest expense up 30% through your numbers and look at the impact to cash flow for equity investors - the leverage is BIG!).