Sabretoothed,I agree mostly with what you are saying but just...

Sabretoothed,

I agree mostly with what you are saying but just want to comment on the prefs. You said:
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Secondly, I wouldn't play with VRLPA, they need to be get rid off, everyone knows they will, but without the dividend they are worthless, if you are hoping village will buy them out for a profit it is high speculation.
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I agree it is unlikely that village will be taken over or that they will buy back the prefs, but in the slim chance of a takeover (which I'd put at about 10% this year since there has been roumours about it in the papers) there will be a much higher profit to pref holders since the prefs convert to normal shares.

On the second point where you say without a div the prefs are worthless - that is completely incorrect - the prefs MUST pay a higher dividend that the normal shares (whether it be next year or in 5 years time) and therefore the return to long term pref holders MUST be higher than that of normal share holders.

I posted on the top 20 shareholders a couple of weeks ago - here is part of what I said:
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Interesting points:
1. Few large sellers of VRLPA (largest is RBC - Royal Bank of Canada), lots of buyers
2. Westpac Custodian Nominees sold 3.6m VRL and bought 7.6m VRLPA
3. Permanent Trustee sold 2m VRL and bought 7.7m VRLPA
4. Queensland Investment Corporation sold 1.8m VRL and bought 1.9m VRLPA
5. Therefore the only significant seller of VRL who did not buy VRLPA is RBC
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So it looks like the large holders generally agree that the prefs are a better investment.

Cheers,

Ed