Ann: Preliminary Final Report (App 4E) year ended 31.3.17, page-2

Another very messy result from this company, with more one-off items, divisional re-structuring and restatements of prior results.

It's a highly cash generative business with low capital intensity, so it should therefore be a high ROE business. Trouble is, management have destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars of shareholder wealth through ill-timed and ill-considered acquisitions that totaled in excess of $1.2bn over the past decade.

As a result, the issued capital base of the company has increased thirteen-fold (!) compared to a mere trebling of profits. ROE has halved over the past 15 years, to 8% today from 17% in 2003/4, which I think represented a similar point in the commodity cycle (i.e., the early stage of the cycle upswing).

And it doesn't look like the lessons have been learnt, with the 5-Year strategic plan ("Vision 2022... Our Everest") again looking very aggressive, implying more buying of revenues and profits without much regard to the durability of those revenues and profits.

This should be a much better business than the financial outcomes it has delivered.

The surplus capital it generates keeps getting frittered away, and I have heard nothing from the incoming CEO that will remedy that.

The only reason that one could contemplate buying this stock today is as a punt on continued recovery in the minerals testing cycle.

But as a business that has a demonstrated ability to create value for shareholders through the cycle, it is sadly lacking, I'm afraid.