Smooth Jazz

Crystal River Capital: Deleveraging to Wait Out the Storm

<Your numbers are wrong. Try again.>

Sure the numbers are wrong, at least 2 of them are since the company provided updates yesterday on the unused credit facility and callable repo debt. As of July 7, the unused line is $70M (higher than the $52M reported in the article) and the repo balance is $22M (lower than the $28M reported in the article). Of course, this rebuttal wasn't about numbers and I think you know that. The anchor of the article was the April 8K, and all I was doing was something you didn't alert your readers to. It appears that since the credit line was higher and repo debt lower, the company may have used some of the $45M cash reported in April to pay down one or both. I agree yesterday's PR didn't address the current cash balance and unencumbered assets compared to the numbers reported above.

Indeed, the crux of my complaint with you is not what you said, but what you DIDN'T say. You made some assumptions about CMBS performance, credit metrics and the like. We will not know whether you are right or wrong until the company reports. My complaint was that used the "Bankruptcy" meme in your headline, obviously to get a desired effect, without alerting your readers the company had made some moves a few weeks earlier to avert the cataclysmic scenario essential guaranteed would occur.

Next time I suggest you TRUST YOUR READERS. Tell them EVERYTHING and let them decide. Give them ALL the data points and let them make up their own minds.

Peace out.