Sydney Gas 12% Conv below FV

Primer on my investment outlook

Here is an excerpt from an article today. I think I'll wait till the bleeding stops and then pick up a few convertibles. These are due in 04/06 anyway, and the company has enough funding to redeem them.

Investors vent Sydney Gas as shares dive 30pc

By IAN LOVETT

June 24, 2005

SYDNEY Gas shares were on the nose yesterday, crashing 30 per cent.

Shares in the troubled methane gas producer dived 20.5c, or 30.8 per cent, to a record low of 46c on heavy trade of 10.3 million shares.

Behind its dramatic fall is a tail of woe, kicked off by the departure at the start of the week of chief executive Bruce Butcher.

The company is also embroiled in a bitter battle with big-end-of-town new age environmentalists who are trying to stop it from extracting coal-seam methane gas near their McMansions on the Central Coast and Camden.

But what got the tongues wagging yesterday was talk it was spending money like a drunken sailor on big salaries and fancy offices.

Sydney Gas occupies an entire floor at 1 O'Connell Street, one of the CBD's better addresses, and its executive director, Domenic Martino, and Mr Butcher were each paid more than $1.5 million last year.