This morning Lindsay Australia posted a decent set of numbers. But the share market does not approve and is currently thumbing it’s nose at my Straw from last Thursday. What I don’t approve from this morning’s release is the use of “underlying” numbers as, for me, it instantly lowers management’s credibility as I assume they are trying to hide something, in this case for absolutely no real reason at all.

The new CEO spoke very well on the call, answered questions well and seems like a decent guy... so why use a fake set of numbers! 

It is impossible to really know why the short term voting machine behaves as it does, but I hold ABB in real life which had a wonderful reaction to it’s earnings release on Friday but not so for LAU today. They are currently similar sized businesses from a Revenue perspective, but the market sees them so dramatically different I’d thought I’d compare the numbers. 

Clearly Mr Market likes the future prospects of ABB a whole lot more than LAU.

Or is it a management credibility issue?

Why on earth would you use a set of underlying numbers when there is F’all difference and in the case of your headline statutory EBITDA number (which I’m not a fan of) is actually $7m higher. 

I’m a long term investor so happy hold while I wipe the egg off my face, in fact if it keeps dropping I’ll buy some more.

I should add the caveat that the comparison with ABB isn't obviously apples for apples with the recent acquisitions for both companies making the comparison hard.