The question is what value are we talking about.  There is market value, insurance value, written down value, estimated value, book value, historical value, unimproved capital value, second hand value, realisable value etc etc ……………..and so the list goes on and these are all different values for different purposes.  Valuations may be a crafty calculation, one based on statistics, or purely an estimate, or best guess at the time. There are many many  ways to value, the list is endless.   These values are used for a variety of different purposes, consequently the long list of values for this, or value for that.  

A good example is  market value which most of us think we understand.  Whist you may get a market valuation from a valuer for your property which is his best estimate based on what is happening in the market,  the real market  value is what you can sell the asset for, that is what someone will pay you for the property, which may be very different from the valuation you have been given. It can be more, it can be less, it may depend on who wants to buy, or it may depend on how hard you bargain, it also depends very much on whether you are buying or selling and a myriad of other reasons..
 

Banks are a good example.  If you want to borrow money using your property as security, the bank will require you to get this valued which will be a market value and also a mortgage value.  The mortgage value is the figure the valuer thinks the bank can comfortably lend up to, and if things go bad, will be able to recover by selling the property.  The bank will sell the property for as much as it can get, and as a minimum would expect to recover the amount of money lent based on mortgage value.  Any surplus should be refunded to the client. In any case  banks will often make their own assessment of “value” which may be less than what the valuer said. 

In the case of FNPF I think they are saying the “valuation” of Natadola, and which ever valuation they are using has increased.  In other words they have recovered some value, so they can now write up the “value” of Natadola in their books which makes  them look good, as they have “recovered” some of the loss they previously incurred by writing down the value of the investment. 

If you go back to my original letter of 9 June to FNPF I had FNPF on about the write down at Natadola saying that it was excessive, and at the time we the pensioners were going to be made  to bare that loss by way of reduced pension is future years.  I went on to say  given time the value would be recovered.  In essence FNPF were using this write down as another reason/excuse for reducing pensions, which was nonsense. 

This comments simply vindicates the point I made that some value would come back (and more value will be recovered in the future) and this will benefit members by way of higher interest payments in the future, and we the pensioners will get nothing from the increased valuation. 

It is just another hole in the FNPF story that they have exaggerated the position in order to justify their stance on reducing pensions. 

I trust I have not confused you on valuations, but in some cases value is really a question of what number you wanted. It can be a bit of a lottery!