June 12 2008 is a date seared into the memory of everyone who worked at Babcock & Brown, a financial wizard that operated across the globe, buying up high end assets; wind farms, power companies and a lot of real estate.

B&B's share price, that had soared in the first heady years after it listed on the ASX in 2004, had been on the way down for months. The US debt crisis that first surfaced in 2007 was the tip of an iceberg with more grim news revealed daily. Australian companies like B&B, property giant Centro Properties Group and investment firm Allco – all powered by debt – were terribly exposed.