west lb may be centro holdout..., page-29

Thanks apples. According to the list, I should already have one and so should a couple of other CNP regulars. I reckon they only update the heart-list every month or so. Or maybe they are waiting to see if CNP goes bust, in which case I will slip from eligibility fast. Perhaps I need to go and find the wonderful Wizard of Oz to see if he can help.

Anyway, there was one other thing I forgot to mention in my earlier post and that is CAF, the Centro America Fund.

From the annual report, CNP has a 41.4% stake which is carried on the CNP balance sheet at $252.6m. We know this is already up for sale but it seems like the offers received were not acceptable to the directors. We have no idea what 'not acceptable' means but by my guess, it would be anything significantly under book value. In a dire emergency, CAF could also be offloaded quickly at, say, 30% discount to book or $175m. Buyers could be easily found at that level.

In summary, $200m represents only around 3% of the total debt to be refinanced and (as you can see) Centro has numerous options open to it to close the gap. This is why I am so confident it will be resolved quickly. In fact, it's probably already been sorted out, in which case "Better get under cover, Sylvester. There's a storm blowin' up, a whopper."

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...