Investing in coal was once motivated by a desire to generate wealth

A look backwards through the Whitehaven Coal Annual Report of September 2015

A Year of Delivery - Whitehaven Coal Annual Report 2015 / page 79

DIVIDENDS

Paid During the Year

During the year the Company did not pay any dividends.

Declared After End of Year

Directors have resolved not to declare a dividend in respect of the 2015 financial year.

A Year of Delivery - Whitehaven Coal Annual Report 2015 / page 4

KEY ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION

We contribute to the social and economic development of the communities in which we operate. The Company’s economic contribution was $470.1m in 2015. This includes:

• $125.6m in payments including wages and superannuation to employees
• $214.9m in payments to suppliers in the Gunnedah, Narrabri, Tamworth and Liverpool Plains shires
• $129.6m in taxes and royalties to governments

A Year of Delivery - Whitehaven Coal Annual Report 2015 / page 2

FINANCIAL

Net loss after tax $342.7m

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Investing in coal is now the way to make charitable "key economic contributions".

In 2015 shareholders very generously chipped in a lazy $342.7m towards the $470.1m Whitehaven Coal paid for "key economic contributions".

Whitehaven Coal Annual Report 2015 - Financial

Economic benefits created by Australian Government budget deficits

Spain's house prices to fall another 30pc as glut keeps growing

The UK Telegraph, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 27 December 2012.
Spain's property slump will deepen for much of the next decade, and tracts of buildings along the Mediterranean coast will have to be demolished, the country's top consultants have warned.

Spanish government says the housing market has 'touched bottom' after falling 30pc since 2008 |  Photo: AFP

...
Fresh losses could reach 50pc and drag on for 10 to 15 years in those places where construction ran wild during the bubble, bringing the total decline from peak to trough towards 75pc.

"The market is broken," said Fernando Rodríguez de Acuña, the group's vice-president. "We calculate that there are almost 2 million properties waiting to be sold. We have made no progress at all over the past five years in clearing the stock," he said.

March 2013 Euro area unemployment rate...

EUROPA Press Room, 30 April 2013.
Among the Member States, the highest unemployment rates were recorded in Greece (27.2% in January), Spain (26.7%) and Portugal (17.5%).
...
Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate increased in nineteen Member States and fell in eight.
...
In March 2013, the highest youth unemployment rates (young persons under 25) were observed in Greece (59.1% (January 2013)), Spain (55.9%), Italy (38.4%) and Portugal (38.3%).

Spain: who is responsible for the property bubble?

BY EDWARD HARRISON / ON 22 FEBRUARY 2009.
This first part in a series of articles lays out the statistics of bubble and bust, demonstrating the scale of the bubble in Spain and it also makes a number of suggestion as to how to prevent a recurrence. You should note that this article points out Spain’s helplessness due to its lack of control over interest rates as a key impediment to solving the problem. ...