RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Impact of CSeries on BombardierHey Pablo, are you back in again?
If I may chime in with my thoughts? AB had no chance with PB in control of the company. But in hindsight, AB was not a good CEO. He was weak in business decisions, (look at all the transactions), and a yes man to PB. His job would have been to advise PB how to stop the bleeding. Yet he hadn't a clue.That Airbus decision was the worse decision I have ever seen by a company. I don't care if PB was calling the shots at the time. AB could have threatened to quit if the Airbus sale was done that way. For AB to agree to do that deal, shows to me that he was weak as a businessman, and had no backbone to say something to PB.
Raphael's insight on his father LB's decision to take chances with the Bomber's financing, was interesting. But all of LB's decisions such as to acquire the di Havilland, Short Brothers, and Daimler's train division in Germany were all great buys IMHO. Those were not RISKY moves, they were smart buys. De Havilland's real estate (Downsview) alone gave them $700 M in 2018, let alone the CRJ program all for $100Mill? Short Brothers was another steal, and so was Greman rail. So LB was a smart businessman. But the kid was dumb. Even if PB is his son, it's up to the Father to know that. If he controlled the family purse a little while longer. This CSeries fiasco wouldn't have happened. Hind is 20/20. But common sense is 40/40. No way should LB allow the kid to undo everything he did, with one decision to keep plowing ahead with the CSeries. If LB was awake on the wheel he would have stopped the hemorrhaging.
You don't trust kids with that much money. We all have kids, and we all know our kids capabilities, but sometimes we don't know them as well as we think, so therefore we control the purse for quite sometime before we hand EVERYTHING over to them. JMHO.
PabloLafortune wrote: Johnney, it happens a lot in family businesses unfortunately. Don't be so harsh. In hindsight, it was bound to happen. A parent as a good parent has to give his son/daughter a chance if he/she wants it, the son wasn't qualified by 3rd parties and probably would never get a chance at another similar firm (AB, BA, GD, Textron), and AB was thrown into a financial mess in businesses he had little knowledge of (BT). The good news is, they could have gone private. They didn't. You should see how many times Bay Street throws the small Canadian shareholders under the bus with this deal or another, so when they say they want a single share class structure, its not because they have your or my best interest at heart, believe me. We'd already have been wiped out if it was (single class shares). The bad news, the last few years have been very painful. The good news, the future is bright. And by the way, the share price is 75 cents so still chance to average down...(at your own risk of course). So lets move on shall we?