Slow news week

Must be tough for Melbourne journo, Mark Hawthorne, following the BrisConnections story. I mean, how much fun can it be, trying to stay awake while grown men in wigs take turns asking questions of a 26-year old who is clearly in way over his shaggy head.

Seriously, does this guy look like he ever had a "recapitalisation strategy" for a $4B toll road?

I can therefore chalk up last week's piss-poor fact checking effort to glazed eyes (thank you, Google cache). Hawthorne originally reported that ANZ would have a $322M hole in its pocket if BrisConnections' unitholders do not pay up on the $1 instalment, due 29 April. In fact, it has nothing to do with ANZ at all - Macquarie (aka Evil Doughnut Empire) holds this particular baby. Oh and by the way, I like how he said it was ANZ that "issued a clarification" to correct the article - nice way of making it seem like they got it wrong.

"Oh yes, sorry about that last tip, Marky Mark, we've gotten so used to being smack bang in the middle of lost money, we must have thought we were in this one too!"

Given that the deal involves over ten banks and has been public domain since mid-2008, I am puzzled, yet my benevolent side tells me to invoke benefit of the doubt for Marky Mark. Not sure ANZ shareholders would be as forgiving.

Speaking of forgiveness (or not), I don't think I can chalk this one up to boredom resulting in badly written articles being accidentally sent to the print room. I mean firstly, "BrisConn"? Biased much? And secondly, this gem: "for $600 he stands to lose the family home. it's outrageous, almost criminal". Really? Who's the criminal?

*RING RING!!!*

I think it's the Daily Telegraph, Marky Mark, they'd like to know if you could please bump up the reading level of your writing to the Tele's benchmark: that of a 10-year-old.

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Jumping away from journalistic incompetence for a moment. I am compassionate to most people in most circumstances. People are often victim to unforeseeable turns of luck, and lose it all while doing nothing more than providing for their family. Even farmers, clearly playing a mug's game in a continent as dry as Australia, attract my compassion and admiration.

This is NOT one of those cases. It irks me when people, through their own ignorance, arrogance, or both, face to lose the shirts on their backs and then try to plead innocence and how the world should cut them a break. In this case, we have a few unitholders who bought units at $0.001 (not a typo) in the hope of a quick buck, and did not read the prospectus.

There was no misleading management. No wilful misinformation from the broker. There's no pyramid scheme. Brisbane did not suddenly disappear. It's not even a "toxic security" - it's a run-of-the-mill security that just happened to be on a layby program. They just DID NOT READ. And now they owe 2,000 times what they paid, and they want the rest of the unitholders to stop, pity them, and wind up a toll road? How about the other unitholders, who want to hold for the long-term, see the toll road get built, get used, and eventually see a return on their investment?

You clearly don't have a clue what you're doing. So who in their right mind would let you vote on anything?


Disclosure: Rockett Fuel has financial interests in both ANZ and the Evil Doughnut Empire, and tragi-comic interest in BrisConnections. Rockett Fuel also discloses that he believes Brisbane is a hole, and was surprised to learn there are enough cars there to warrant a car park, let alone a toll road. Basically, he only gives a rat's if the toll road got built insofar as it affects his interests in ANZ and EDE.