Yep I hear you Delphi on the 'red flags in the bank credit...

Yep I hear you Delphi on the 'red flags in the bank credit departments", but would suggest that Aveo would be in the 'B pile' with many more pressing concerns in the 'A pile', given the stock (and property) market pull back in 2018.

As to 'banking availability' when comparing 2017 to 2018, take into consideration the sale of surplus assets such as Gasworks and in 2h19 I would expect a few more asset sales...as they have announced.

But you are correct in the general financial position and the 1H figures will look pretty sick as the massive development stock overhang at June 30 2018 has not moved as quickly as expected. No wonder the FY19 development program has been halved and buy-back a farce. Conserving cash is paramount, but certainly well within their headroom capacity. 

Tell me if I am wrong here but I see a similar scenario happening with what LLC did with the Dutch Pension Company in December 2017. That is, they sold a 25% equity in the entire village portfolio for a slight premium to NTA (around 7% from memory) and the metrics for calculating DMF are much the same as AOG. I'm told the pension company were looking for a solid asset base with a reliable annuity style income. Isn't this what appeals to WBC, CBA, ANZ and NAB about Aussie residential? Retirement villages are 'residential' with an income stream baked in and protected by law of contract. It's just a matter of actuarial time (and death or departure) before they collect the cash and then do a new DMF.

Yes, DMF might not be flavour of the month...but it is 70% of the entire retirement industry and 180,000 people (or thereabouts) have vetted the contracts and consented. Like cigarette companies, their product might not be popular, but to many they serve a purpose. Certainly the satisfaction rates expressed by the residents (even the Aveo residents) would say so.

As to shorts I only see 3.61% shorted as at Dec 27 (www.shortman.com.au) and this has been trending down from a knee jerk reaction after the AGM where some 9m additional shares were shorted (taking the figure up to just over 4%.)