There was no doubting what was top of mind for Babcock & Brown CEO Phil Green when he arrived at a news conference to announce his firm's interim results on Thursday morning. "Are there any short sellers on the line," he asked. No, it was only the media. But if Green had been pained by the "rumour and inneundo" that he said had been circulating in the market and undermining B&B's share price in recent weeks - B&B slumped nearly 50 per cent from the start of the sub-prime contagion to a nadir of $17.60 last Thursday - he was quickly in an improved mood. A better-than-expected interim result of A$250 million (65 per cent) and an upgrade to the annual profit forecast to A$540 million, helped B&B shares rebound another 8.5 per cent to A$24.50. "I hope some of them are getting squeezed today," he said. Still B&B remains 23 per cent below its June peak of $34.78. Still, Green admitted that many in the market had trouble understanding the business model. "We are managers of assets and managers of specialist funds. We don't trade in securities and we don't take equity accounted risks." He said he did not expect the credit market volatility to impact his group's ability to deliver an ROE of 25 to 30 per cent in coming years, or slow down its development pipeline. He said the credit spreads today are the same as they were one year ago and three years ago."The movement in spreads from six months ago to current spreads has no material impact on the group's ability to secure and fund accretive acquisitions," he said. "We're not oblivious to market disruptions, we're not oblivious to changes in credit markets, but the fact is our business is not positioned, for the most part, in that space," he said.Green said there was strong support from the banks, particularly for its growing renewable energy portfolio. Indeed, Green said the biggest threat to B&B's results was global warming, or at least the failure of governments around the world to recognize the problem and take action to solve it. "If the world tomorrow decided that global warming is not a threat, that we can go back to coal fired power stations, we can forget about wind farms, we can forget about renewable energy - that would severely impact our profits for the next two years," he said. B&B has lifted its assets under management by 69 per cent to A$52.6 billion over the past year. That will grow to $60 billion after the completion of the Alinta purchase. And of those inevitable comparisons with Macquarie, now with some A$200 billion under management. "It doesn't bother us if we are going up in tandem with Macquarie, but it does if if we're going down."