ridiculous, page-3

Thanks,

Lets hope Bill & Ben don't go loopy like Abacus just did by giving the farm away at bargain basement prices. Talk about overkill. Slaughtered the existing Abacus unit holders with a massive placement and rights issue at a fraction of the NTA. And the fund pays big bucks for that standard or management decision making?

On a positive note, I believe from a well placed contact that the NAB is quite comfortable with Aspen. This is the benefit of having a good rental cashflow and Aspen only having one bank to deal with and that bank being in a sound financial position (who wants to owe $200M to a bank thats under financial pressure?). Contrast this with most of the other LPTs who have to negotiate with a syndicate of banks/lenders some of which are overseas players bleading like hell themselves and in no mood to cut anyone any slack.

I'm also reliably informed that they have reasonable inflows to the unlisted retail property funds so thats good to hear as well.

Getting back to the uplift in rental income flagged by Bill & Ben, I think that is mostly attributable to the Karratha Village (Woodside) coming on stream from Jan 09. I'm fine with that and I think they will deliver on that rent uplift.

What they are also banking on, is the revaluation of the completed Karratha Village project (cost $28M, rental income $10M approx) will offset the softening of valuations on the rest of the property portfolio. That's why Bill & Ben keep uttering statements that they belive the $1.34 per unit (is that the NTA? Close enough)is robust. Time will tell but when you go through each of Aspens properties (those owned by the listed company itself) they do seem pretty good assets and well managed. I have no question that they manage their assets well. I'm just not sure they possess a near term strategy to undo the share price carnage. I also think they still have too much fat in the Salaries area (outside of Bill & Ben themselves). In other words, it could still be run leaner.

Lets hope we see a recovery in the unit price sooner rather than later but I'm happy to put the slipper in if they just sit on their bums sucking their thumbs rather than being proactive. I'll be awarding marks if see them sell assets at book value or better in a crap market and retire debt. A gold star will be awarded for a share buyback thereafter.