RE:RE:AIR CANADA VALUATION ANALYSISThanks for your eager post. There are a number of non-sequiturs around your understanding of gross cash and net debt (gross cash less gross debt), how valuation is actually done day to day by analysts and other items. Recognize that DCF valuations are rarely done on airlines without folks smirking due to the lousy predictions of years 3+. EV/EBITDAR is the industry standard, as perusing the JP Morgan, Goldman, and CDN bank reports will illustrate.
It is clear you dedicate a lot of time to Air Canada and believe they are unique in their ability to navigate this crisis with just apparently a hiccup and profits will shoot back up rapidly. I hope you are right, despite the guide of history that suggests Air Canada was unable to divorce itself from the pain associated with post 9/11(I thought they went broke in 2003) or 2007/2008 (I thought the share price reached $1, down from $20, despite Canada not going thru a financial crisis). But “it’s different this time” always could play out.
Apparently, I misguidedly viewed an airline as a levered business with heavy fixed assets that need to be utilized 24/7 with requisite demand to drive adequate returns on invested capital. When asset utilization falls, returns and cash flow fall and debt comes to the forefront. Not so, it seems.
And if you believe that Air Canada investors will not only look over the Coronavirus-valley and also sidestep $7.3 billion in net debt, but also throw a higher multiple on your prognostication of apparently-soon-to-come record profits, then I believe I should adopt your rosy worldview for my mental health.
For your own edification, I have included research papers around prior airline industry demand shocks and the impact it had on fundamentals. And just to spoil the surprise, it took 3-4 years for profits to get back to respectable levels and in some cases several years for share prices to regain higher levels. But heck, what does Buffet know!!!
Good luck to all.
https://mckinneylaw.iu.edu/ilr/pdf/vol36p367.pdf
https://www.mcgill.ca/iasl/files/iasl/ASPL614_Industry_PostDeregulation-Houston.pdf
https://www.nber.org/papers/w16744.pdf