"These guys are experts at destroying shareholder value - "...

"These guys are experts at destroying shareholder value - "

Well, I am no apologist for AGL, but I always like to test throw-away comments such as "these guys are experts at destroying shareholder value" for their factual veracity.

It strikes me that on any obvious measure of shareholder value creation (or destruction), AGL have done rather quite well, at odds with your assertion that the company has destroyed shareholder value.

Taking the past 10 years as a representative period that encapsulates AGL's full business cycles:

Revenues have increased at a CAGR of 8.5% over that time frame.

The P&L has demonstrated the required operating leverage, with CAGR of Underlying EBITDA, EBIT and NPAT of 9.9%pa, 9.0%pa and 11.4%pa, respectively.

The company has raised equity capital in 2012 and 2015 (to purchase Loy Yang and Macquarie Generation), so the additional shares on issue means that the 11.4%pa NPAT growth translates into an inflation-beating EPS CAGR of 7%pa.

Long-run DPS growth has been 8.1%pa.

As shown in the preceding post, this respectable financial performance over time has translated into Total Investment Returns of between 9% and 12%pa, depending on the investment time frames.

And, given AGL's dominant market position and the durability of its business model, I think that investment returns of ~10%pa are far more shareholder value-creating, than they are value-destroying.

Put another way, $100,000 invested in AGL 10 years ago, would have been worth in excess of $250,000 today.

Not sure about you, but I suspect most investors would take that kind of investment outcome every single time, especially on a risk-adjusted basis, given AGL's scale (operational, financial, marketing, systems, geographical), the integrated nature of its business model, and its robust cash flows.