Rodin, there was no more detail about the earnings forecasts. A...

Rodin, there was no more detail about the earnings forecasts.

A few other points of note that I can remember:
- the effect of the strong Oz dollar pretty much much balances out between the portfolio of businesses. some of the importers benefit and the exporters have margins squeezed..
- the new AlloAir division has been setup to house opportunities/spinoffs that don't sit within the automotive group. Rob gave an example of some sort of air filtering business they own. the business they purchased related to the cleaning of air within cars but the intellectual property covering this technology potentially has much wider usage.
- there is one upside to the credit crunch in that the earnings multiples Allomak has been paying for the businesses may come down. Business owners are coming to accept that getting a sale price of 5 times earnings is a little harder now and maybe 3 times earnings is more realistic.
- Rob also mentioned something about doing some emissions testing for the Chinese Government although didn't give any more detail so I've no idea exactly what this involved.

Even though there have been no acquisitions within this half, there is certainly plenty happening. Although it appears that some of these opportunities are not material to current earnings, they may be in the future - there are the cashcow businesses and some other opportunities that may or may not payoff.

Rob Allan did give the impression that he's a veteran of these sort of acquisitions. He did quote a figure of 100 to 150 acquisitions he's been involved in and he's learnt plenty along the way - eg. it's very hard to change the culture within a business so don't bother acquiring businesses that have the wrong culture.

It's a bit hard to repeat/remember all the small comments but hope this gives you a few more ideas. It might be worth dropping Rob Allan an email if you need more info. They are changing the reporting structure so that the end of year report gives more drill-down financial info.