Page 20, Read
Staff score: nil. Bonus: 133%. Next year’s grant: triple. Bingo.
Topic
Superloop
Superloop (ASX: SLC): owner of Exetel, wholesaler behind Origin Energy's broadband, and employer of a team in Sri Lanka paid against the rupee. It has spent recent years buying smaller brands, signing wholesale customers and explaining to the market why its earnings deserve a higher multiple than they currently get. Unaudited reads the filings behind the explanation.
Distress, Converted reads Superloop's Sri Lanka operations and the salary arrangement pegged to the rupee. A Merger of Equals sets Superloop beside Aussie Broadband at a similar price and rather different earnings. Both are written from the company's own filings and those of its subsidiaries. Where a subsidiary's accounts tell a different story from the group presentation, both are quoted, side by side.
A note on method. Superloop's group accounts consolidate a number of subsidiaries, several of them acquired, and some lodge financial reports of their own. Those are read too, because a subsidiary's accounts tend to describe its costs with a frankness the group presentation does not need.