# porter airlines



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

a red-hot ipo today. Books opened for a couple minutes around 1 pm & phhht she was all sold out.

does anybody think they got any. Broker (not mine) told me parties buyng would be lucky to receive 2 shares for every 100 they'd ordered.

globe's eric reguly weighs in from rome to pronounce doom for Porter if hi-speed rail comes to the toronto-ottawa-montreal triangle. But there's no sign of progress on even the idea of such a rail line. Canada is much more into saving her excellency the gg. Or replacing her with an overweight ex star trekker.


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## w0nger (Mar 15, 2010)

terrible investment in my opinion... Deluce is delussional... he's been claiming that Porter has been making money for many years and when his prospectus finally came out it showed a loss year after year. The only reason they're even alive is cause they have a monopoly at YTW and Deluce has deep pockets. As soon as AC or Jazz get back into the YTW then there's no way they'll survive. The cost structure is not plausible for a competitive market. I'd stay away...


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

i do beg to differ. Porter owns its aircraft rather than leasing them, so the capital cost appears in EBITDA whereas with a conventional leasing airline the cost would be configured after ebitda.

one has to consider cost per seat mile. This has dropped from .33 in 2007 to .22 in 2009.

porter's deep pockets are not just deluce's. They include ira gluskin, the carty family interests and OMERS. Pockets don't come any bluer or deeper than these. All will retain their majority interests & have pledged not to sell for 6 months.

porter is best-known for having nailed the bulk of the slots at toronto muni airport. Jazz is fighting to obtain a minority number, but it won't be forgotten that jazz' parent air canada walked out on billy bishop airport a few years ago, and it's expected that porter will retain its prized privileges for years to come.


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## CanadianCapitalist (Mar 31, 2009)

As a rule airlines are terrible investments. But let's not forget that LUV was one of the greatest stocks ever. 

I don't even bother expressing interest in IPOs. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, "I don't care for any IPO that will accept me as a shareholder".


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

but every stock was an ipo once upon a time.

even a sleepy portfolio's etfs. were. ipos. once. upon. a. time.


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## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

I'm with CC here.

While every public company must have an IPO, I think IPOs are a bad time for retail investors to buy.


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## CanadianCapitalist (Mar 31, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> but every stock was an ipo once upon a time.
> 
> even a sleepy portfolio's etfs. were. ipos. once. upon. a. time.


I'm not talking about buying a stock as soon as it starts trading. That's possible for anyone with a brokerage account and some stocks may be worth buying. I'm talking about buying a stock in IPO. Us retail investors almost never receive any shares. If we can get some shares, it is almost certain to be a lemon.


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## w0nger (Mar 15, 2010)

http://theairlinewebsite.com/index.php?/topic/389763-porter-going-public-via-ipo/

added to support my argument... a most interesting read if you are going to invest in Porter eventually...


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

that is a link to a website that is nothing more than an anonymous chat forum, and a nasty one at that. There are obvious paid PR flaks from the big vested airline interests posting there under their cyber handles. Air canada has at least one that i could identify ... and i only spent a few minutes scanning the thread. Most of the posted remarks i saw consisted of high-testosterone cyber insults. I read nothing of substance.

i for one do not think it's kosher for an anonymous poster on one forum to cite another anonymous poster on another chat forum - who may in fact be himself writing under a different handle - as an authority or even as an "interesting read." This is taking stealth & innuendo too far. On the other hand, if you have a legitimate by-lined source from a recognized media, i'd be happy to read it.

i'd like to add that i began this thread as a discussion of porter air, most of whose ipo is going to end up in institutional accounts including aggressive funds & pension funds. I didn't launch it as a discussion of whether or not to buy ipos in general, a practice that i do not follow myself.

one of the biggest weaknesses in porter's debut is the fact that lead underwriters RBC and TD are bankers to porter. This is a fairly common ipo profile and it's always a red danger flag. In other words, the banks are uncomfortable with a company's high level of debt and so they stage an ipo with gusto in order to reduce debt. Risk is thus transferred from the banks to private investors. In my view, this is a far more uneasy circumstance than the oft-spoken fear that mssrs deluce, gluskin, carty plus omers will up and dump in 6 months' time.


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## CanadianCapitalist (Mar 31, 2009)

From the Globe today:

Institutions in no rush to board Porter IPO



> The fearless prediction here is that the Porter IPO will fly, but at the low end of the range put forward by the airline and its underwriters. Institutional investors are the first-class fliers on this IPO, and Porter will do what's necessary to ensure the money managers climb aboard.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

CC the article didn't say the institutions weren't flying, it just said they were lingering at the first class lounge bar having a last drink while the price of the ticket crept lower.

cheap oil, when you think about it, is helpful to porter.


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