Discovery Air Rescued

[Black Mike]

Why doesn't VIH bail them out?

 

HeliJim:

I think Ken bought too many 407's, got no money left.

 

May be time to do the tour in Scotland we spoke of last fall- I'm getting thirsty already.

 

B.M.

[Skids Up]

These are all good companies and loss of any of them would be tragic.

 

This will probably come out wrong, but...

 

If they are great companies, (is it that are great to work for, or good business models) then why are they needing to be bailed out? If they weren't "making it" in good times, what does throwing money at them in poor times, do?

 

Again, nothing about them (anyone) personally, but if what they are doing isn't working now, how will money fix it?

 

It's one of the things in the car industry (without me knowing anything about it) where they say they have to pay BIG bucks to keep top personnel, but those are the same personnel that lead them to where they are...

 

Apparently there are lots of things I don't understand...

 

[Lunchbox]

Although its hard to call out GSHL and Air Tindi before the DA time as being week.

 

I agree. The previous owners of GSHL seemed to do just fine for 20+ years (which I can attest to, as a former employee). However, there seems to have been alot of debt built up under DA, which is not good business. I think the GNWT loan merely buys DA a bit of time.

 

Even if DA goes under, the work for 75+ A/C won't simply evaporate. Someone will step in and by up the bulk of the assets, perhaps some of the peripheral assets being gobbled up by a number of competitors, but life will go on. I just feel bad for the guys and gals at GSHL going through some uncertain times.

 

As for the auto makers: if GM sold 8.3 million cars in 2008, they can't make a profit and they're about to go belly up, they did something horribly wrong. It's not just the economy. And GM wasn't doing well even before the market tanked, so it's not an excuse.

[helicopterjim]

HeliJim:

I think Ken bought too many 407's, got no money left.

 

May be time to do the tour in Scotland we spoke of last fall- I'm getting thirsty already.

 

B.M.

 

Positively parched myself.

 

You're right about Ken. He probably needs more money to buy twins for hydro work too.

 

Cheers

Jim

[vortex]

Even if DA goes under, the work for 75+ A/C won't simply evaporate. Someone will step in and by up the bulk of the assets, perhaps some of the peripheral assets being gobbled up by a number of competitors, but life will go on.

Part of GSH's problem is that a lot of the work for 75+ aircraft did simply evaporate. With the average stock price of junior exploration companies in Canada down over 90% from their highs, much of what was hoped to be normal, there every year type of work has simply...evaporated. DA paid a lot for GSH and now has to try and pay off that debt. That may be a large challenge for them as they are now going to only operate +-52 a/c so I guess they will just have to fly more hours at a higher rate. That should be easy....right??? :shock:

[Black Mike]

Here's my view on it, for anyone that cares,

 

If every time the phone rang here, with another job inquiry, and I ran out and bought more aircraft to keep every customer happy, I would be in trouble today as well. This is the third down turn in the industry that i have seen in my heli career and, as many of you have seen, several companies have disappeared in the past 40 years for the same reasons.

 

A company should have a little cash put aside for a rainy day (or summer) and this may save their butt during times like this. Although a horrible thought to some operators, you can farm out a job or 2 to your competition and they may do you a favor some day. Try paying for some of the equipment that you already have before buying (or having the bank buy) more.

 

This system works and you don't need to go whining to the government for money to bail you out of poor management decisions.

 

B.M.

[Freefall]

As soon as companies go public there always seems to be this pressure to get bigger and bigger as fast as possible. Reminds me of NMH. Didnt really work out for them either.

[Skids Up]

DA paid a lot for GSH and now has to try and pay off that debt. That may be a large challenge for them as they are now going to only operate +-52 a/c so I guess they will just have to fly more hours at a higher rate.

 

This will work well for servicing their debt that they couldn't cover with the +-75 machines they had before ....

[heli_b]

This will work well for servicing their debt that they couldn't cover with the +-75 machines they had before ....

 

I think a little misinformed, it is not that they couldnt cover the debt with 75 machines but that the loans term was up, they weren't creating more debt, time to refinance.

[Zach]

QUOTE (heli_b @ Feb 9 2009, 07:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think a little misinformed, it is not that they couldnt cover the debt with 75 machines but that the loans term was up, they weren't creating more debt, time to refinance.

 

I'd also add that the main feature of this economic crisis is that it is a credit crisis where money is not very available even to credit worthy people/institutions.