Macquarie may sell Skyway, or may not... Bloomberg blunders (MEDIA)

Several readers have forwarded us a Bloomberg News report with the all-capitalized headline "Illinois, Indiana Toll Roads May Join Macquarie Sales" suggesting we should follow up on this. Trouble is there's nothing there, no news, nothing new.

Macquarie spokesman have said repeatedly over at least six months that they are "reviewing options," looking to sell assets where that will, as they say, "enhance shareholder value". 

They have ruled out nothing.

And of course they have sold some tollroads, notably their major interest in M7 in Sydney.

Since the great financial collapse a year ago Macquarie like others have done major writedowns of their assets. And they have foreshadowed more details of writedowns August 20 with the official 2009H1 financial report.

So of course Macquarie "may" sell their interest in the Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road, and for that matter their other pikes.

But also they may not sell them.

It may rain tomorrow, and it may not rain. Is that news? Apparently at Bloomberg it is.

Some basics for Bloomberg's cub reporters:

Selling seems to require a buyer, and an agreed price.

So while this morning Macquarie may not be inclined to sell the Skyway, this afternoon a buyer they didn't know may show up, and that buyer's offer may be sufficient to start some haggling. And suddenly it's a whole different story.

So while officials at Macquarie almost certainly have in mind prices at which they'd sell, they like any potential seller are in the dark on what potential buyers would pay, so they themselves can't know whether they can make a good sale or not.

The Bloomberg piece by Darrell Preston is a sloppy spot filler.

Its lead sentence cites "investors" as saying Macquarie may sell. The only investor cited is one William Seddon a funds manager in Sydney and Seddon cites as evidence an old and already heavily reported public statement by Macquarie about reviewing options to enhance shareholder value.

Yet Seddon, the same guy cited in support of the they-may-sell thesis at the start, at the end of the piece is quoted as saying: "It wouldn’t be a good move from a shareholder value perspective to sell assets. If they were to sell them, given their value at next to nothing, they would likely be giving the assets away and passing up the potential for a recovery."

A Bloomberg copy editor let this through!

Readin, Ritin, sorry no Rithmetic

The Bloomberg reporter also hasn't a clue about currency movements because he writes:

"Macquarie Infrastructure also faced a 14 percent devaluation of the Australian dollar against the U.S. dollar in the past year, reducing the Australian dollar value of its U.S. investments."

Think about that for a second.

A 14% devaluation of the Australian dollar will INCREASE, not "reduce" the Australian dollar value of a US asset. Say the $A was 80c in 2007 and went down 14% to 69c in 2008, $100 in US investments would go from A$125 (=100/80) to A$145 (=100/69) on account of the A$ devaluation.

Bloomberg News got it ass up!

But readers please keep sending this kind of stuff. It's so bad it's fun.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-07-30