Ready to pop, page-308

Worse.
(I think.)

But it is difficult to form a definitive view from this one particular result, for a number of reasons, not least of which is that the people now running this business have barely got their feet under their desks.

So this result was never, in my mind, going to provide the "Eureka!" moment for the stock, because who knows what hollow logs have been created? When set of financial statements are as messy and fluid as ISD's are, it is hard to identify any.

But I'm sure that, like all good new executives, these guys will have got the board and auditors to sign off on a set of accounts that gives them a head start in subsequent financial periods.

For me the most critical milestone in this particular result was that the company's solvency metrics did not deteriorate, which they haven't, despite the capital that would have been expended in restructuring exercises to date.

Stabilisation of the balance sheet was the first order of business; thereafter right-sizing the business, which is what I look to happen in the coming months.

It is clear to me, from the share price response today, that there are a lot of very stale bulls in this stock. But I think that people under-estimate how difficult it is to turn around a faltering enterprise, and how long it takes. It's hard.

And that is the reason that, when one does invest in these sorts of high-risk, high potential return situations, that one doesn't bet the farm on them.