Where did all ACTEW's money go?

dungfungus said :

What is of more concern is the revealation that Actew owes $1.4 billion and Mark Sullivan rationalises that this debt may never be repaid because “public utilities all have big debt like this”.
That is tantamount to saying Australia’s economy is the best in the world because we owe less money than our competitors.
Only last week he was reminding us that Actew was a commercial business. No lender I know would provide money to a commercial business if there was no plan to repay the principal.
A debt of $1.4 billion in the industry that Actew is in is appaling considering that the NSW Government is selling the Eraring Power Station for $50 million. Actew isn’t a power generator of any significance so what assets does it have that would offset the debt if the company was sold?
I suspect that the ACT ratepayers will cop any shortfall as they did with Rhodium’s failure.
Actew lost $50 million on the TransACT venture. If they stayed within their area of “expertise” they could have bought a power station.

I honestly don’t see why this would he a big deal. Many companies have gearing where they may only be paying the interest, its fairly common practice. I’d be thinking that due to the low risk of their activities, finding funding wouldn’t be difficult at all up to a certain point.

As for what assets Actew own, perhaps you’ve missed the four massive dams, and thousands of kilometres of pipe throughout the territory. I don’t know the total worth but I’d guess it would be many billions worth.

What is of more concern is the revealation that Actew owes $1.4 billion and Mark Sullivan rationalises that this debt may never be repaid because “public utilities all have big debt like this”.
That is tantamount to saying Australia’s economy is the best in the world because we owe less money than our competitors.
Only last week he was reminding us that Actew was a commercial business. No lender I know would provide money to a commercial business if there was no plan to repay the principal.
A debt of $1.4 billion in the industry that Actew is in is appaling considering that the NSW Government is selling the Eraring Power Station for $50 million. Actew isn’t a power generator of any significance so what assets does it have that would offset the debt if the company was sold?
I suspect that the ACT ratepayers will cop any shortfall as they did with Rhodium’s failure.
Actew lost $50 million on the TransACT venture. If they stayed within their area of “expertise” they could have bought a power station.

Well organising extravagant parties is both time consuming and expensive!