bsrsharma: Accounting for Chrysler or Lucent is going to be different than for Beazer, largely due to the fact that in both cases, they have significant physical assets (auto production plants for Chrysler, telephone networks for Lucent). Chrysler’s net negative is mainly composed of unfunded pension liabilities and legacy costs.
I think this upcoming year will be particularly telling for the big homebuilders, especially after seeing their stocks savaged this year. Homebuilders don’t enjoy very good market capitalizations and those capitalizations are in large part based on a pretty bare bones Graham’s valuation (land + houses + Cash + A/R). Beazer’s rate of burn would be a major concern, especially if they continue to have problems moving houses.
