Feedback, page-50

I note your points about BOL's prior capital raisings having helped to "de-risk" the business. I guess this is will only have been true if that capital had been directed prudently. Unfortunately, BOL management have not exactly covered themselves in glory, on this score. Without spending the time to re-check my records, right at this moment, my memory is that every batch of fresh capital was used by management as a wild eyed opportunity to realise their bold plans for expansion.

@MarsC,

We sing from the same hymn sheet (which is not necessarily a good thing, mind).

Although I'll have you standing just slightly corrected: not all equity raisings accompanied acquisitions directly.

But this point is moot, anyway: whether capital was raised simultaneously with acquisitions, or whether raisings were undertaken to repair the balance sheet which became that way because of earlier acquisitions, it boils down to the same thing, in my mind: Inordinately poor capital discipline.

And the irony should not be lost on anyone that the very assets that were acquired over the crazy, commodity party years, with the equity capital that was raised, are now being sold off (in a quasi fire sale) in order to pay back the providers of the debt capital.


"So whilst the balance sheet repair that is occurring is very welcome (and central to the investment thesis), ultimately it will mean the bankers will eventually ease off. Once they do, will BOL managements animal spirits be unleashed again? I hope not."

I have almost zero doubt that history will repeat itself.

When the company cheque book gets taken out of the bank vault and returned to the BOL board in 12 months'time, watch out.

The funny thing is that when the company starts to make renewed noises about "expanding" and "growing" and "investing in its future" and "responding to improved market conditions" (my guess is that the first "strategic" deal they do will be to "diversify" into something other than cranes, given how scarred and brutalised they probably are after the past few), then that's most likely when renewed interest in the stock will be sparked among the majority of investors.

Just when it starts to become the most dangerous.

Ah well, so goes the cycle...