the next one to get hit by subprime, page-10

Given Macquarie Bank finalised a debt package of $A9bln (most of which was under 3-5 year facilities) at the same time as the restructure I don't think the credit market problems will be too much of an issue for Macquarie Bank.

Also, financing of the infrastructure and property trusts is only an issue if they are highly geared and/or book values of assets are inflated.

I beleive the problems for Centro were that their gearing was about 70% of book value of the assets, a significant portion of their assets have question marks over their true value and the majority of their debt has to be rolled over within the next 12 months which would have had a major impact on their ability to rollover the immediate debt. Also, it seems management had assumed that as they had been able to roll over $300m in August that rolling over a few billion in December wouldn't be a problem.

As an example of one Macquarie fund, at 30 June 2007 MIG's debt represents a touch over 30% of the book value of assets and most of the debt is non-recourse debt, so I'd imagine MIG would have less difficulty than the likes of Centro and RAMS with obtaining debt to fund expansion. I don't know if all the funds Macquarie manages are similarly structured but if they are it would suggest that they still have room to move despite the drying up of credit markets.

I'm not saying that Macquarie are immune to the credit crisis but they are probably better positioned than most for business to continue reasonably close to normal.