FEA update

Forest Enterprises (FEA) announced to ASX on 26th June 2009 a lower than expected MIS sales figure for the almost completed year 2008/09(FY09). http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20090626/pdf/31j8mn9qqfyr3x.pdf
And a lower than the hankered figure as per the ASX announcement of 27th May 2009.

The “sales are likely to be significantly less than the $60 million achieved in FY06 and FY07”.

Significantly less, that’s an unequivocal statement.

Voodoo economics

Consultants are often willing to write reports to support floundering arguments. The forest industry's commissioning a report comparing the assistance it receives with other industries is a case in point.

At first I thought it (see Brucey hits back for forestry) was written as a spoof.

Or maybe similar to the recent Sunday Tasmanian Op Ed piece that was riddled with errors from the very first paragraph, designed as an educational exercise, encouraging students to spot the incorrect facts, identify the non sequiturs and the sophist techniques with a view to honing their skills.

Gunns after the deluge

Surviving MIS companies Gunns and Forest Enterprises are at pains to distance themselves from their fallen comrades, Timbercorp and Great Southern.

The boss of Gunns Plantations Ltd Ian Blanden was reported in Business Spectator on 25th May 2009 as saying,“(o)ur business model is very different ………. We are a forest products company who have established an agribusiness investment or forestry investment arm. We’re not an MIS company………..we’re an end user looking for a resource, not a resource searching for an end user and we have a very diversified source of revenue, MIS making up somewhere between 10 and 15 per cent of our annual revenue to the Gunns group.”

Wither FEA?

Gunns have been trying to point out ( Gunns after the deluge ) how they differ from the recently fallen Timbercorp and Great Southern.

What about Forest Enterprises Australia Ltd (FEA)? Any similarities?

GFC: an accounting parable

 

Economics has been squeezed out of most business studies courses and as a consequence recent graduates have little understanding of macroeconomic events. The following is the first draft of a paper which attempts to explain credit formation, derivative products and the ensuing GFC, from an accounting perspective, presented to  business studies students. Whilst a simple model beloved by economists is used, the major point of is to interpret what happened from an accounting perspective.