The 2008 interim profit season officially finished at close of business on Friday but, as you would expect in times of crisis, quite a few late-comers are still dribbling out losses of various sizes today. 

We probably won’t ever again see a day like Friday, where all the announcements are still available chronologically here.

Last Thursday’s Crikey outlined eight companies that should have announced losses exceeding $1 billion on Friday. With the exception of Babcock & Brown Capital, none of them went far enough given this is how they actually fared:

Babcock & Brown Power: claims to have net assets of $1.4 billion against a market capitalisation below $40 million, but rather than taking write-downs, somehow managed to declare a profit of $19 million.

Babcock & Brown Infrastructure: reported a $245.8 million net loss for the December 2008 half but this only reduced claimed net assets from $2.96 billion to $2.36 billion when the market capitalisation is down to $150 million.

Babcock & Brown Capital: announced a loss of $1.427 billion for the December 2008 which reduced claimed net assets of $1.28 billion down to negative equity of $541 million, even though it is capitalised at $200 million.

GPT: hedging, joint venture and property write-down losses delivered a record $3.25 billion loss for the December 2008 half, but this only reduced claimed net assets from $8 billion to $7.22 billion when the market capitalisation has plunged to just $2 billion.

Gunns: declared a $33.6 million profit despite claiming to have net assets of $1.34 billion when the market capitalisation is down near $400 million.

ING Industrial Fund: only announced a $445.9 million loss for the December 2008 half, so still claimed to be worth more than $2 billion when market capitalisation is below $100 million.

OZ Minerals: declared a $2.5 billion net loss but still claims to have net assets of $3.3 billion when the market capitalisation is just $2 billion.

Paperlinx: announced a $567.5 million loss for the December 2008 half which reduced claimed net assets from $1.92 billion to $1.56 billion but the market capitalisation is down near $400 million.

All up, we’ve now had 52 different listed Australian vehicles join the list tracking losses of more than $100 million for the December half, after you include today’s two new members who were late:

Galileo Japan Trust: was late with its December 2008 results which came in with a net loss of $196.4 million after heavy write-downs. However, currency movements saw claimed net assets actually rise from $370 million to $386 million, even though the market capitalisation is below $20 million and bankers appear in control. The auditor is James Dunning from PwC.

Orchard Industrial Fund: write-downs and derivative losses delivered a $137.6 million loss for the December 2008 half, but this only reduced claimed net assets from $337 million to $191.6 million when the market capitalisation is about $60 million. The auditor is Peter Fekete from PwC.

We’ve never seen anything like this before, but it will probably get even worse with the full year results in August because the vast majority of these losses would have been far bigger if a more realistic approach to write-downs had been taken.