Sorry, should have done that in first instance. I have an Age...

Sorry, should have done that in first instance. I have an Age subscription, but not AFR.

Investors need to keep a gimlet eye on Incitec Pivot and management's disinclination to present the full extent of its bad news.
The explosives and fertiliser producer told the market on February 11 that it will bleed around $10 million a week in earnings (before interest and tax) until the rail line servicing its Phosphate Hill facility returns to service after the region's "once in a 100-year rain event". The company's stock has barely moved since.
This nonchalance is profoundly misplaced. Queensland Rail chief executive Nick Easy said on Wednesday that "the line can be fixed earlier than the six to 12 months that has been suggested and reported". Say what?! Incitec's FY18 EBIT was $550 million so even if QR gets the trains running in three months' (time, as John Steinbeck immortally mused, being the only critic without ambition) that's around $130 million (or circa 24 per cent) of forgone FY19 earnings (extrapolating the company's own estimates). The longer this goes on, the more likely some way will be found to mitigate the brute impact. But even half that figure is still a massive downgrade. Make no mistake: Incitec will have to clarify this, and soon. As will all others who rely on trains to move product from that corner of the country, though few are as exposed.
The Mount Isa rail line east of Julia Creek earlier this month as the flood peaked in the area.
Deutsche Bank analyst Mark Wilson seems the only analyst awake. Last week he predicted an 18 per cent earnings drop (and "de minimis insurance proceeds").
None of the other sell-side brokers had by Friday updated their estimates since late January, remaining deeply ensconced in their default crouch: shamefully unwilling to draw their own dots if the conclusion even coincidentally jars with their investment banking colleagues' rolling pitch to win the company's next mandate to raise capital, stock that then must be piped down the firms' private wealth channels, their clients the last relics still reading house equities research. Thanks to Kenneth Hayne, vertical integration lives.