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THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 24 #07 Tuesday, July 21, 2009 Mullumbimby 02 6684 1777 Byron Bay 02 6685 5222 Fax 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au www.echo.net.au 21,000 copies every week
D E TA I L E D P R O G R A M M AT I C S P E C I F I C I T Y
Splendour brings out the animals Sky’s the limit in rocket
celebration at Brunswick Story & photo Eve Jeffery
It has been 40 years since Neil Armstrong took ‘a giant leap for mankind’. A lesser known fact but possibly a more significant event is memorialised this year, the International Year of Astronomy, which is the 400th anniversary of the first recorded astronomical observations with a telescope by Galileo Galilei. Starry Night Planetarium’s ‘Cosmic Couple’ Marie Whealing and Phil-
ip Hood are so excited about these spacey anniversaries that they took a few hours on Sunday afternoon to celebrate, by letting fly at Banner Park in Brunswick Heads. The couple treated kids small and big to a burst of rocket launches from air and water powered units, to a finale of gun powder powered rockets that soared up to 200 metres into the sky before parachuting back to terra firma. ‘We are celebrating the anniversary continued on page 2
Zenna Blewitt’s Sideways Productions is again producing the artwork for the two spectacular Splendour in the Grass entrance arches, Matt Black is working with Zenna (who will also DJ at the tipi circle on Saturday arvo) while publicist Patti Revson tends a new lamb. See feature centre pages. Photo Jeff ‘Barnyard Frolics’ Dawson.
Council unloads CDO at $1.6m loss Byron Shire Council has sold an underperforming Collateralised Debt Obligation (CDO) investment – of the type which helped bring chaos to global financial markets. According to Byron Shire Council’s general manager Graeme Faulkner, the decision was made after a thorough independent financial assessment of Council’s investments. Byron Shire Council held five CDO investments and all were recently ‘stress tested’ by Council’s independent investment advisor Denison Financial Advisory Pty Ltd. ‘The Sceptre CDO investment did not pass the test and consequently sold for a return of 18.2 cents in the dollar. This is approximately $365,000 out of the original $2 million investment,’ Mr Faulkner said in a press release last week.
‘The challenge we faced was when to sell a “non-performing� investment and this had to be balanced against maximising a sell price. This is not easy in during a global financial crisis. The alternative was to sit on the Sceptre investment and risk a high probability of the investment defaulting and zero return.’ Council’s investment portfolio is currently valued at approximately $50 million. The portfolio includes cash, term deposits, managed funds, longer term investments and high yield credit, a portion of which has become known as CDOs. Mr Faulkner said the investments were made in accordance with guidelines issued by the Minister for Local Government and were revised as part of Council’s Internal Audit Committee recommendation after consulta-
tion with Denison’s in March of this year. According to Denison Financial Advisory, ‘the CDOs held are better “vintages� than the bulk of the Local Government CDO investments, and have performed better than those of their peer group’. ‘The remaining four CDO investments are currently rated as investment grade and there is no need for them to be sold,’ Mr Faulkner said. The Denison Financial Advisory report was presented to Council’s Internal Audit Committee and a copy can be viewed at www.byron.nsw.gov. au/committees/internal-audit-committee. A report to Council in August will recommend how the Sceptre loss is Eight year old Charlie from Mullumbimby had the chance to press the butto be distributed across the varying ton with Philip Hood after the surrounding crowd counted down from 10, launching this solid fuel rocket into the heavens. funds.
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