CFO's resignation

[Realitychex]

What you so obviously forget is that unless you hold Onex stock, no one has any real skin in the game at WJ for about 3 years.

Some folks have been involved in a couple of startups that have gone public long since WJ's glory days nearly 20 years ago. Some are even involved in current new entrants around the globe.

The WS ship has long since sailed.

Alas, other than inflation, which rises and falls equally for all, the macro economics haven't changed much.

Ignore them at your peril.

[Mac08]

Maybe you need a reality check and no one in avation gives a damn what you think anymore.

FYI Realitychex is Mark Hill, the WJ employee who was accessing AC employee travel and harvesting passenger loads. Also the same one who said Porter would fail from the start. So take him with a grain of salt.

[TPP]

Porter bled the least during covid as it ran on a skeleton crew maintenance wise, the entire executive staff didn't collect a single dollar during the shutdown, and all middle managers took a huge haircut during shutdown while other airlines lost millions a day.

I suspect Porters corporate culture of not handing out massive bonuses to corporate staff, and overall underpayment of management compared to other airlines is why the CFO left for an opportunity where he would be compensated more.

[cdnavater]

Porter bled the least during covid as it ran on a skeleton crew maintenance wise, the entire executive staff didn't collect a single dollar during the shutdown, and all middle managers took a huge haircut during shutdown while other airlines lost millions a day.

I suspect Porters corporate culture of not handing out massive bonuses to corporate staff, and overall underpayment of management compared to other airlines is why the CFO left for an opportunity where he would be compensated more.

I know it’s been quite a while since Porter attempted an IPO it stands to reason they will attempt it in the future because the investors will want to make money sooner than just waiting for a profit share.
Was this CFO around for the initial try?
You say the management is underpaid but if Porter wants talented people they must have a carrot, ie; a share program, I don’t think Realtychex is off on his assessment. Regardless of what you think of him, he knows this business.
They were supposed to break ground on this new terminal in August, anyone know if that happened?

[Mac08]

“99% of [airline] startups fail within 14 months and this will be one of them.”

- Mark Hill aka Realitychex

He sure does know this business!

[Timetoflyagain]

They were supposed to break ground on this new terminal in August, anyone know if that happened?
[/quote]

..yes…a simple google search on St. Hubert airport news will show the story…..

[braaap Braap]

I know it’s been quite a while since Porter attempted an IPO it stands to reason they will attempt it in the future because the investors will want to make money sooner than just waiting for a profit share.
Was this CFO around for the initial try?
You say the management is underpaid but if Porter wants talented people they must have a carrot, ie; a share program, I don’t think Realtychex is off on his assessment. Regardless of what you think of him, he knows this business.
They were supposed to break ground on this new terminal in August, anyone know if that happened?

Jeff Brown had been with Porter since 2012 and CFO since 2014. I think the IPO attempt was in 2010

[TPP]

“99% of [airline] startups fail within 14 months and this will be one of them.”

- Mark Hill aka Realitychex

He sure does know this business!

"Industry expert confused why Airline that doesn't had out multi million dollar bonuses to corporate staff and is fiscally prudent hasn't collapsed yet.

Predicts imminent bankruptcy."

[Chaxterium]

They were supposed to break ground on this new terminal in August, anyone know if that happened?

They broke ground in August.

https://montrealgazette.com/business/lo ... w-terminal

[braaap Braap]

The CFO's resignation IS likely a red flag. Porter lost a major lawsuit earlier this year and is on the hook to pay JP Morgan about $130 million. Porter has also been doing sale/leasebacks on their Q400s to raise cash. The fact that Porter hired Seabury out of NYC as a placement agent for E190 sale/leasebacks suggests leasing companies are not competing for Porter's business. Aircraft leasing rates have increased significantly over the last couple years, and with Porter's (up to) $270 million LEEFF facility at increasingly unfavourable interest rates (in each subsequent year), unanticipated increases in pilot costs, and other unforeseen costs associated with rapid expansion, all these factors are putting considerable financial pressure on Porter. The CFO resigned from Porter to work at Chartwell Retirement Residences.

The Nieuport suit was appealed and we received an email this week that it has been “settled amicably”. With terms of the settlement being confidential, I assume it isnt the $130M and/or is worked into their slot agreement calculation at YTZ going forward. Take that how you will.

[North Shore]

Thread pruned for pointless sniping..

[newlygrounded]

Take a look at the situation from 30,000 feet.

Here's where WS was at the end of 2000, (58 months into the program) with virtually the same size fleet as Porter's E2 operation after, what 5 months?

https://www.annualreports.com/HostedDat ... A_2000.pdf

Read the President's message.

WS was humming along, making money hand over fist with industry leading operating margins and a share price that was making some call center agents millionaires.

It was a fun time to be at WJ, especially for senior management. The sky was the limit, suppliers, air framers, the financial community, indeed everyone was tripping over themselves to hitch their wagons to the WJ money machine.

Dig deep in the back pages of the Annual Report and you can see that it was in this period that serious personal wealth was created by senior management cashing in on both stock options and performance shares. The rank and file did extremely well too, especially those who partook in the share purchase program pre-ipo, buying stock that was matched dollar for dollar by the company.

Given this situation, there was simply no way any long serving senior executive with a typical executive compensation package, (which would be much richer today than they were 25 years ago), would simply walk away from this personal wealth making machine that would easily set them for life to go to an established public REIT that specializes in senior living such as Chartwell, with minimal long term upside. Sure, there'd be a decent salary, but serious wealth isn't created by salary in this, (or that), day and age. The money is in stock, be it public or notionally public. And when you leave, those options disappear PDQ.

WS's CFO at the time, (and who I maintain was one of the best CFO's in the business), made millions from his compensation package in this window and has been comfortably retired in PEI for 15+ years without a financial care in the world.

The ONLY reason a CFO would move along at this stage of Porter's massive growth mode, bearing in mind that investment bankers literally pole vault across Bay St and Wall St to hitch their wagons to profitable growth stories, would be the recognition that was simply no chance of the promise of a personal financial windfall occurring within the foreseeable future. With time ticking along, it was time to move to other opportunities that had a fighting chance of fulfilling those personal financial dreams. Overseeing the shelling out of a hefty amount of equity to settle the Nieuport lawsuit a week previously probably didn't inspire much confidence either.

No long serving CFO with any time left on the meter before retirement wants to be anywhere near a restructuring or collapse of a business he / she has overseen for a decade or more.

Why leave when the cash machine was on the verge of putting what should have been at least $10m, and probably significantly more, in his jeans? He probably recognized that the perpetually dangled carrot he'd been chasing for 10+ years was no closer, indeed likely further away than ever before. And as CFO, he'd be in the best position to assess that situation, rather than others who would typically be pumping sunshine to any and all who are prepared to listen.

Best to move along and let the next CFO take the beating.

Sometimes 2 + 2 adds up to 4.

Hello Jimbo737 from airliners.net that spews the same old garbage that WestJet is gods gift to aviation and everyone else sucks. Get lost.

Jimbo's still at it, praising westjet for the super low basic fare