HGH - Heartland Group Holdings

[percy]

I would presume that

a) offloading the non core property assets
b) demonstrating profit increases

would allay the concerns of S&P somewhat...

They are working hard on both.
Their record of achieving what they set out to do,means S&P will be satisfied, and customers,staff and shareholders will be proud to be a part of Heartland.

[mouse]

Percy. Did Heartland go up to close at 80 cents today due to a Percy Intervention in the market?
If so, many thanks.
But what can Heartland do?, (except to deny any rumours of spare capital distribution?)
We can all sleep a bit sounder tonight, even Percy with no alarm cat.

[CJ]

I would presume that

a) offloading the non core property assets
b) demonstrating profit increases

would allay the concerns of S&P somewhat...

With them on negative watch, they are atleast 3 announcements away from an increase one would think as they would have to go through stable, positive watch, then finally upgrade.

Didn't quite get low enough for me to top up (though I am trying to de-leverage at the moment)

[percy]

Percy. Did Heartland go up to close at 80 cents today due to a Percy Intervention in the market?
If so, many thanks.
But what can Heartland do?, (except to deny any rumours of spare capital distribution?)
We can all sleep a bit sounder tonight, even Percy with no alarm cat.

Yes the much loved cat is greatly missed.
What Heartland can do is keep up with what they are already doing.
They are clear in what they want to do,and they do it.
Coming back from a very successful selling trip to lovely Dunedin I past HEARTLAND HOUSE in downtown Ashburton today.
I thought the one in Tauranga looked impressive,but the one in Ashburton was outstanding.!!
A very bold statement.I look forward to their expansion into Timaru.!!!!
The SP.Well anyone who read Heartland's reply,and the the Cameron Bargie article I referred to in an earlier post,would have realised just how far Heartland Bank have come,and how positive the outlook is for NZ over the next three years.I am pleased I backed myself and brought more.

[Minerbarejet]

Which means somewhere in Christchurch, Percy is quietly smoking on his pipe, feet on the ottoman and single malt slowly unwinding over ice, contemplating his good fortune at picking up more of Heartland at a 5% discount.

At this hour of the morning?

[Minerbarejet]

I should have said "last night" and used past tense. :-)

just leg pulling- liked the quote - especially the bit about the single malt.
was about to make a "term deposit "with Heartland yesterday and they suddenly shot up 3 cents- dang.

[percy]

just leg pulling- liked the quote - especially the bit about the single malt.
was about to make a "term deposit "with Heartland yesterday and they suddenly shot up 3 cents- dang.

Sounds pretty good to me too.!!!!
Bit surprised the SP did not stay down longer.

[Balance]

Interesting the market has shrugged off the S&P negative watch so quickly.

Heartland dropped from 80c to 76c in two days, and has climbed back up to 80c over the following two days. It would seem the market doesn't take the S&P comments very seriously, or perhaps more accurately, has assessed the risk and believes S&P's comments to be overstated.

It may have simply triggered some nervous nellies into performing an act of IQ arbitrage with bolder and more confident investors.

Which means somewhere in Christchurch, Percy is quietly smoking on his pipe, feet on the ottoman and single malt slowly unwinding over ice, contemplating his good fortune at picking up more of Heartland at a 5% discount.

Anyone reading the S&P report on HNZ would rapidly come to the conclusion that S&P now shoots before asking question.

Don't under-estimate the impact that the US case against S&P has on the psyche of the fraudsters in there - issuing AA to issues which collapsed without so much as a headwind!

Excerpts from articles on the litigation against the rating agency :

"A lead S&P analyst on the deal, according to the plaintiffs, said in an email to his boss that the default rates the agency was using for asset-backed securities were guesswork. "From looking at the numbers it is obvious that we have just stuck our preverbal (sic) finger in the air," the analyst wrote."

"Of course, S&P is knee-deep in the Justice Department’s civil fraud suit in California federal court, which builds upon evidence and legal theories laid out in the Cheyne and Rhinebridge CDO cases. The agency moved to dismiss the Justice Department’s suit last week. S&P is also facing deceptive trade practices claims by more than a dozen state attorneys general; in the most recent development in the AG litigation, a federal judge in Connecticut rebuffed the rating agency’s attempt to remove Connecticut’s 3-year-old case from state court, where it has already survived a dismissal motion. (The Connecticut AG has brought an illegal trade practices suit against Moody’s as well.)"

I throw my friend's moldy shoes at them.

[Banksie]

I throw my friend's moldy shoes at them.

I think you will have to be renamed to the "Barefoot Trader"

[macduffy]

A Bill recently introduced to the US Congress, if passed into law, would make S&P and the other rating agencies irrelevant - at least as far as the "Too Big to Fail Banks" are concerned.

From Mauldin Economics:

The broad strokes of the TBFA Act:
●Mandates a flat 15 percent capital requirement for any institution with more than $500 billion in assets
●Does not rely on ratings agency grades
●Removes off-balance-sheet assets and liabilities as different classes — they are treated as if they are on the balance sheet
●Requires derivatives positions to be included in a bank’s consolidated assets
●Requires that the capital cushion a bank holds be liquid
(Note that these five elements are much stricter than Basel III regulatory requirements. Brown-Vitter renders it irrelevant to U.S. banks).

OK, I know Heartland's not quite in that league!