I don’t think there is demand in the market for SCF or any of its dairy farms or Southbury as a whole, and Hubbard won’t want to exit either of those businesses as a steep discount.

The next big thing for Hubbard and his empire is SCF credit rating review, which is due in the coming weeks, and if it is bad news on that front, who knows what might happen next?

Seven Ugly Gaunt Cows That Could Swallow South Canterbury Finance
http://davidhillary.blogspot.com/2009/11/seven-ugly-gaunt-cows-that-could.html

Regarding the poll, actually the last option on the poll is ‘not before 2012′ which is available for those who don’t think it will fail in the foreseeable future (1 vote for that so far, if that’s not yours, please vote!).

I have to question your claim that the vast majority think SCF is not in significant jeopardy. Preference shares are presently trading at about 35c in the dollar — the market appears to think they have about a 1 in 3 chance of pulling through the present distress — and you can try out your contrarian views with your own money and make a handsome profit if you’re right.

The longer dated debentures are trading at a yield of about 20% p.a. but note that if SCF fails just before the end of the guarantee, those debentures are covered by the guarantee, and investors only lose money if SCF survives the end of the guarantee and fails afterwards. However, for SCF to survive past the guarantee, it must be successful in recapitalising and addressing its other problems. So, if you take this into account, it appears that this is also consistent with a 1 in 3 chance of survival. (e.g. say 1 in 3 chance of failure covered by the guarantee (no loss), 1 in 3 chance of failure not covered by the guarantee with a 50% loss, and 1 in 3 chance of no failure, for an expected loss of 1/6th (16.7%, with the remaining yield representing risk free interest rate)).

As for me, the more I study the financial statements and the prospectus, and the chatter about SCF the more trouble I see. It appears that few have confidence in SCF’s future survival, let alone its future prospects. On one article with a lot of comments, someone said something to the effect that if it wasn’t obvious, that one was supposed to post something derogatory about Hubbard or SCF.

Anyway, thanks for posting something in support of SCF, it is always good to hear from someone with a contrary view.