WBC - WESTPAC BANKING CORPORATION

[Biggle]

In reply to: blueice on Thursday 13/11/08 03:35pm

http://markets.news.com.au/Newscorp/Compan....aspx?SecId=WBC

 

Out of 16 Broker recommendations

1 Sell

1 Under perform

9 Hold

3 Buy

2 Strong Buy

General Consensus Hold towards Buy,

Mind you todays carnage probably hasn't been taken into account, so I'm praying the DOW gets its act together tonight, so we might get a bounce tomorrow, otherwise I think I will give up on the banks.

[Pips12]

I brought WBC yesterday at $17.77. I am scared they might drop more today. Crossing fingers. I purchased 500 of them. http://www.sharescene.com/html/emoticons/unsure.gif

[Biggle]

In reply to: Pips12 on Friday 14/11/08 08:26am

With the dow finishing well up last night, fair chance it may bounce today IMO, you may do well.

[blueice]

In reply to: Biggle on Friday 14/11/08 08:46am

Biggle, is there a short term disadvantage by WBC buying SGB?????

[Biggle]

In reply to: blueice on Friday 14/11/08 09:42am

That would be the 60 million dollar question, I don't really know. My long term opinion is 2 profitable banks have merged together to form 1 larger bank, so the simple equation would be the 2 market caps joined together divided by the shareholder amount, which would have to be greater than what it is now. The real world short term equation is the current market, and banks in general. Plus the unknown factor each bank has in regards to toxic loans and future write downs, in other words, who knows. Just my humble opinion. http://www.sharescene.com/html/emoticons/icon14.gif

[blueice]

In reply to: Biggle on Friday 14/11/08 10:26am

OK Biggle good response. I am sure WBC management know what they are doing. But without trying to sound paranoid, do we know what exposure SGB has to any bad debt???. I know a while back SGB was handing out quite a few LOW DOC home loans, which now must be worthy quite a few millions of dollars.

 

Was the merger done in a way to save some one????? Or is that question being quite sad??? dunno mate, just thinking out loud....................

[Biggle]

In reply to: blueice on Friday 14/11/08 10:45am

I believe the low doc loans were meant to be insured through mortage brokers, so in a perfect world these loans shouldn't be a liability. Unfortunately the last 12 months has seen the perfect world go down the toilet, but i am hoping the US proping up AIG, who I believe may hold insurance over these lo docs, things may turn out all right, but all this is very nerve wracking to say the least. http://www.sharescene.com/html/emoticons/sadsmiley02.gif

[blueice]

In reply to: Biggle on Friday 14/11/08 10:52am

So when the special divvy of $1.24 / share is paid out to the SGB holders next week, then there is a good chance WBC could fall further by that amount??????????

[disco stu]

When an organisation starts sprouting lines like this is a takeover that is not being driven by the normal means by which we define or measure a successful takeover, and the successful measurement in this takeover will be by how many customers they retain - you can rest assured that it was all driven by one thing... ego.

 

Frankly WBC didn't have a choice. It would have hardly done to let the Company that their new CEO just left have it's shareprice half and then half again, because of short sighted funding strategies and opportunistic purchases of subquality market share. They could have got SGB for half of what they paid - it just wouldn't have looked good.

 

Remains to be seen whether it will be as a value destroying aquisition as Suncorps takeover of Promina, but it doesn't look particularily good at this stage. http://www.sharescene.com/html/emoticons/thumbdown.gif

[wolverine]

In reply to: blueice on Friday 14/11/08 01:35pm

No.

 

SGB will fall by that amount.

 

the deal is 1.31 to 1 so WBC will hold it's price fine depending on what the market chooses to do.