Originally Posted by
B772
who cares: Your a rocket scientist !.
All jokes aside.
This is the performance of Aust airline stocks. This excludes any dividends that may have been paid.
Alliance 1 Yr -12% 3 Yrs +226% 5 Yrs +370%
Qantas 1 Yr - 9% 3 Yrs + 38% 5 Yrs + 79%
Rex 1 Yr -33% 3 Yrs + 10% 5 Yrs - 1%
Virgin 1 Yr -46% 3 Yrs - 45% 5 Yrs - 78%
Anyone who is still holding VA shares from the float in 2003 at $2.25 per share should have their head read. In early 2005 a shareholder Chris Corrigan of Patricks was not happy with the direction of Virgin and mounted a takeover to become the largest shareholder with only 62% of the company. Branson would not budge and retained 25% ownership. In 2006 Toll purchased Patricks and attempted to sell the 62% holding. They could not find a buyer. If Branson and other minority shareholders owning 13% had sold to Corrigan of Patricks Virgin Australia would not be in the spiral dive they are today and could have been a more formidable competitor to Qantas . As it is Virgin does not meet the listing rules if it were to be listed on the ASX today.
Very good post. After Ansett collapsed and Virgin Blue floated itself on the stock exchange Branson made a whopping $960m in total. Not bad for someone who ‘wanted to save the Australian public from the horrible duopoly of QF and AN’. Then, after he sold his majority stake he still pocketed $50k per year per aircraft tail for
VB using the Virgin logo. That’s why they changed the design and name eventually. Of course he kept a couple of percent invested ‘to show he had faith in the airline’. What a crock. The second biggest winner from the float was Rob Sherrard who pocketed close to $100m once he sold his shares. Not bad for the former bankrupt from Sherrard Aviation. Godfrey waited too long and as the share price dropped he only made around $60m. Godfreys other mates like Bruce Highfield (head of HR) and some others also made several million from the float. The whole concept was to make a select handful of people very very rich while the rest of the workforce earned ****e money because they were blindly following the pied piper Branson who is nothing more than a cluey marketer. They did a good con job, I know of several pilots who borrowed between $50k to $100k and purchased at the list price because they were convinced the airline would be a great investment and provide a robust return. Hmmmm, didn’t quite work out that way unless you were ‘gifted’ all of your shares for free such as what happened with Branson, Sherrard, Godfrey and ‘mates’. Staff were none the wiser, some even still none the wiser today, dedicating their waking moments to working for an airline which paid them peanuts and treated them with contempt behind the scenes. The place was, is and always will be an act of smoke and mirrors. The ultimate glitter coated turd.