Please understand what was going on. Michael Milkin, who worked at Drexel Burnham and and effectively started the junk bond market used to hold an annual event known as the Predator's Ball in Los Angeles. At this event private equity investors and corporate raiders were taught that P/E ratios were unimportant and the key was the Price/Cash Flow ratio. My understanding was that Alan Bond attended this event in 1981 and on the flight back analysed the ASX and concluded that the lowest P/CF stock in Australia was Swan Brewing. In October 1981 Alan Bond, through his company, Bond Corporation purchased the Swan Brewery for A$164M.

It was a terrific buy and if he had stopped there he would be regarded as a genius. Unfortunately he could not. In 1983 Bond Corporation acquired Castlemaine Tooheys for A$1,200M, and then in 1987 he paid $1.05 billion for Channel 9. Then came the recession Australia had to have and interest rates rose to over 20%. By 1992 he was bankrupt.

I worked for a company that was taken over by Bond in late 1972. He is credited with creating the Bond Corporation. In 1973 the person who had got Bond out of "painting signs" as a living, left the company because he was fed up with the way they were functioning. Several of the people in the company, including myself, left soon after the takeover because we could see that the whole system was a sham. When I resigned he offered to almost double my salary, but I could see that writing on the wall. The real value of the Bond Corp was not a fraction of what was claimed. A few of us did the figures and estimated that the company had a negative balance sheet, not what was claimed in the "official" figures.