RE: Patience...LachanceaaHi Lachanceaa, " Have patience, everybody."
Hey, I'll second that good advice.
At the same time anyone who does panic with the flavour-of-the-day negative sentiment probably deserves to get out just before business picks up again. Rest assured that other (and some of them with greater stamina) will eventually see value here and take advantage of the opportnity to climb aboard.
"I hope they never give up the dual share class, because if they do the company will fall into foreign hands."
I've wondered about this myself. And whether its a foreign company or not when you've held onto a stock for a long time sticking with it through thick and thin you might wind up asking yourself about the value of long term investing if another company can simply swoop in and buy up the shares at a low point.
What's really to stop management from intentionally allowing the share price to fall precipitiously and then swoop in themselves to buy up all the shares on the cheap - leaving shareholders holding the empty bag? In fact, some have suggested Bombardier did precisely that with its recreational products division. In my view, the accusations aren't completely unfounded.
But was it really necessary? Yes the share price was touching all time lows. At times it was hard to imagine there could be anyone else besides those of us here, and the family members themselves still holding the stock.
Polaris, a competitor of Bombardier's Recreational Products unit, says it now sees demand returning. In the years ahead, as a shareholder who originally invested in a Bombardier which included the Recreational Products Unit, it will be difficult watching earnings from that business now flowing only to the BBand Bs - the Bombardier, Beaudoin and the Bain Group, the private equity group which helped the family take it private.
Security regulators should have some kind of restrictions in place to ensure managements can't profit personally from "selling" off parts of the business to themselves.
Bombardier rationalized the sale at the time saying it was necessary for the survival of the company. Maybe, but it is tricks like that which do little to inspire investor confidence and loyalty to the brand.