Now that the government will guarantee all bank deposits - no matter how large - attention turns to the companies with  cash. The more the better. We identify several large, mid and small cap companies with ample fire power for acquisitions once the banking systems stablises.

At the big end of the market Seven Network is one one of the most liquid relative to its size with $1.16 billion in cash forming 98% of its current market value. This represents a breathtaking revaluation of the business assets which until two weeks ago were worth at least $300m but are now effectvely zero.

At the centre is the 50% stake in the television network and the seven magazines which it shares with Wall Street  leveraged buy-out firm KKR. Then. orbiting this core holding, are various media and other assets consisting principally of a 22% holding in WA News, 4.58% of Consolidate Media, owenership of the "under development" wireless business Unwired and effective control of Engin, a internet and VOP service provider making painful losses.  Unrelated to this collection is a stake in GRD, the mineral and waste processing design engineers which has a solid pipeline of projects, but which has also slumped..

A buy-back at current levels will be highly accretive as Kerry Stokes makes up for buying into media assets at the top; he can now have a second go at the bottom paying as little as $240m for eliminating 20% of the shareson issue. This will leave Seven with about $900m and a mixed collection of media assets: two cash-cows in Seven Media Group and WAN and the two fairly expensive experiments in engin and Unwired. "The Wimax" technology has its sceptics, but does have the great advanatge of relatively low cost roll-out.  The obvious query hanging over this lot is whether the Seven team and Stokes have the capacity to second guess where broadcast technology will go and the uptake in a more subdued, dollar conscious environment. The "products" touted by the new media crowd tend to be faddish and trivial; restaurants and cricket scores. But we should show some rspect; Kerry Stokes did not make his multimillions by day-dreaming.

He now has one of the biggest war chests on the scene; it will be difficult not to buy well.

Others with significantly high cash balances include Origin aat the big end of town and IMF, Ipernica and Oncard at the micro end of the market.  For Oncard's situation see our report blwo, but don't ignore the litigation businesses IMF and Ipernica with $83m and $32m each.  For IMF this represents 95% of the market cap and for Ipernica it is also roughly 100%. As with Seven the market's pricing of these ones is wildly awry, typical of times of stress.

In both almost all future growth is discounetd out of contention, whereas the informed observer, or perhaps we should see the unstressed observer can fairly predict that both will have a fair share of settlements from cases in progress and more to be joined. It is also likely that broadly both are in a better position to bring cases and manage cases, being well cashed up. Ring for more detailed reports.

The market efficiency hypthosis is a typical example of our academic thinking seeks to create laws and models of aspects of human behaviour like economics where there is only complexity and impermenance.