When that it had all but dotted the i's and crossed the t's on its 拢1.6bn refinancing deal yesterday, there was a palpable sense of "thank God for that" around the City.

The 10-month marathon had been brought to an end and when one deal insider was asked by 好色先生TV for a quote, they replied:  "Aren't you bored of writing about this yet?"

So, the company lives - and that's all yesterday's announcement really tells us.

That and how tough it is to get money out of the banks at the moment.

At a whacking interest rate of 9% it will cost them about 拢144m a year to service the debt. That's 拢395,000 every single day in interest - or one  Ferrari Enzo. Roughly. That must really sting when the base rate is 0.5%.

They'll clearly need to get selling some houses fast.

As one analyst said: "It shows other housebuilders that they really don't want to go back to the bank in any way, shape or form because they've missed covenants."

But selling houses is not simple in this market and so a rights issue looms large. It's a complicated bit of number crunching but if they fail to raise 拢350m by 2010 it will hit them in the pocket by about 拢80m a year.

It's a no-brainer surely.

The question is when they go to investors. Waiting for the share price to rise in order to raise proportionately more cash could prove risky but investors will not be massively interested until the market has some semblance of stability in it.

The whole mess must leave wondering what his predecessor Peter Johnson was playing at during his 21 months at the company.

Poor management and accounting systems at TW have repeatedly been blamed for the excruciating delays in getting the deal done.

Some suggest Johnson was only made FD at all because he came from Taylor Woodrow and was used to strike a balance in the boardroom after the meger with George Wimpey in 2007.

Either way, Rickard has had to come and pick up the many pieces and you wonder whether he'll stick around or he's had enough after being parachuted in by the banks last October.

Another deal insider was asked whether Rickard had ever cursed the mess he had inherited.

"He doesn't strike me as the cursing type," they replied drily.

You'd have thought he would be quietly swearing under his breath at this mess though.