RE:BBD.B will go bankrupt. Article here.Your article was a good arguement.
There have been huge mistakes: 1. the biggest biggest of course was underestimating the amount of capital required and 2. naive to the vicious competitive replies from BA and AIR.
At the pace of the financial damage regularly occuring for the last few years, no one has to explain why Bombardier has become a penny stock!
I'm not naive enough to think that owning a few thousand shares of the common is going to make me any serious money. But as a small investor, I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to participate in this turn around story.
I'm not as pessimistic as you are, and here's why:
1. The family stepping aside for required decision changes. I don't want to get into the dual share structure and how it has big a contributor in bringing on the current mess.
Finally a management team sufficiently experienced to dig really deep into the bowels of this company and to implement the painful remedies required. Layoffs will continue where necessary and improved processes learned from American and global aerospace sector implemented.
2. Capital write downs serving to significantly reduce the cost per unit on the new airplane + the cancellation and write down of another $2.1B unprofitable contract + the Lear 85 write down, all painful but nessary. They are paper events at this point but so reflect a lot on wasted capital in hindsight. But its done and we got to move on......
3. A lifeline of required capital from friendly allies with deep pockets such as the Caisse. Many agree the Caisse is now one of best capital manager in the world - they just didn't throw money at Bombardier. This will impose further financial dicipline - a huge change from the pass for BT.
4. C-Series orders are grabbing traction - with certification of the CS100 only just completed, you do point out obvious weak points in the development of the airplane. But, you've got to agree the Q2 2016 looks like an achievable delivery target now. The CS300's certification is said to be 70% plus completed and with no delays expected.
You do point out the company's excellent products. Not so long ago most people had no idea what a regional jet was. That project took years to grab traction - the goal back in about 1996 was to have 1,000 CRJ firm orders by 2001. Bombardier reached this target in late 1998 or early 1999.
Everything you said about the last 15 years is true. Driving the shares into the ground is not an elegant way to force a company around. Now there is no choice! And for the founding families this is not about making money, is about pride of providing gainful employment for many Canadians. They well know they need to step aside.
Had this article been published last February 2015, it would have been more pertinent. The damage is done. The required restructuring is happening and yes, there remains a lot of work to do. The good news here is that a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done.
Canada's got to be more than just rocks, trees and oil!