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TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

EnviroTO said:
Really the only benefits to getting rid of the dual class share structure is to protect against the risk of idiot hiers [sic], and to address shareholder votes which were close and would have gone against the family voting block. In the Bombardier shareholder meeting when Boudoin said the family had no interest in loosening it's grip people cheered.
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Considering the idiot heirs have taken a stock trading at over $25 to now one trading at well under $2, I'd say those cheering folks weren't shareholders (i.e. the owners of the company), but more likely those with interests in keeping the status quo regardless of the company's collapse in value.
 
Except that the company management has developed an entiitlement attitude. Things aren't working out? Just ask for a handout. I have yet to hear that the family or senior managers have endured any real hardship. Executive compensation has been awfully good, even in the bad years.

It's a reality of big organizations that the rank and file are just passengers on the cruise, and even if they work diligently their future is at the mercy of executive miscalculations. (The Titanic had a great crew, but they were in the Captain's hands) What's offensive in this case is how the family is using its Canadian workforce as the leverage to get its handout. "Hostage taking" is not an overstatement. Give us money or we will lay off people.

Ottawa's insistence on taking equity in return for providing capital is commendable and is a prudent check and balance on the family's control of things. We need the jobs more than we need the family.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
Ottawa's insistence on taking equity in return for providing capital is commendable and is a prudent check and balance on the family's control of things. We need the jobs more than we need the family.
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Indeed, and who's to say that the abolishment of non-voting shares would lead to the jobs leaving Canada? Certainly it would lead to the break-up of Bombardier, but it's an artificial bag of former Canadian subsidiary companies anyway, and there's no reason those good ones couldn't carry on locally under some other ownership.

Montreal Locomotive Works (MLW) and Canadair were USA-owned (as well as partially owned by the Fed gov't), Toronto's DeHavilland Canada and the CC&F streetcar factory in Thunder Bay were UK-owned (Thunder Bay plant was sold to SNC Lavalin in 1986). We basically traded UK/USA ownership of Canadian transportation manufacturers for a private family from Quebec.

With late deliveries, lay-offs, outsourcing and demands for gov't handouts, I don't see where the benefit of keeping them all run from the Quebec family is. As for the Ontario-based divisions, almost all transportation manufacturing in Ontario is foreign-owned, and seems to be working well enough. Why does it matter if the head office is in Montreal or Detroit?
 
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Why is the stock $2 though? Are the company's revenues 1/12th what they were when the stock was worth $12? Has the transportation side which China was willing to buy for much higher than the stock value significantly underperformed financially in the last few years? It seems that the stock price is almost wholly related to the CSeries project and a question whether Bombardier can get to profitability on that investment. The aircraft is now certified and in production so the worst is over. I fear that investors focus on getting the most for shareholders would have sold to China and collected the $8B, stopped the CSeries project to watch the company who had largest market share in some categories watch those products get old and irrelevant.

What shareholder votes received less than 70% support and could be pointed at as ones that would have gone done other way?
 
Canadair, deHavilland, and UTDC were unloaded to Bombardier because they were a drain. There wasn't a bunch of companies wanting to own these companies and keep jobs in Canada, there was one company that wanted to do that. So with no other suitor back in the day, those jobs would likely no be here now, or they would still be crown corporations with a less competitive product. Now all those plants have much more being manufactured in them.
 
crs1026 said:
Except that the company management has developed an entiitlement attitude. Things aren't working out? Just ask for a handout. I have yet to hear that the family or senior managers have endured any real hardship. Executive compensation has been awfully good, even in the bad years.
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Much of the executive was replaced in the last five years. To get experienced executives from other companies to work for Bombardier, you need to pay comparably to the market. The family holds a lot of its value in Bombardier in shares so a drop to 1/12th of its prior value is going to hurt them more than anyone.
 
TheStar has a story on refurbishing the existing fleet:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...our-keeping-an-aging-fleet-stay-on-track.html

With the TTC rebuilding 60 cars, does that mean that we'll have a surplus of cars if Bombardier completes the order by 2019? Are the refurbished cars going to remain in service?

Are those 60 meant to fill the potential requirements that the option for an additional 60 of the new ones were meant for or is that number just a coincidence?
 
Just saw 4420 pulling into the Long Branch loop. Not sure if it was testing and unable to take a picture as I was driving.

And then I saw 4000 at Bathurst and Lake Shore. The newest and the oldest in one day!
 
MetroMan said:
TheStar has a story on refurbishing the existing fleet:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...our-keeping-an-aging-fleet-stay-on-track.html

With the TTC rebuilding 60 cars, does that mean that we'll have a surplus of cars if Bombardier completes the order by 2019? Are the refurbished cars going to remain in service?

Are those 60 meant to fill the potential requirements that the option for an additional 60 of the new ones were meant for or is that number just a coincidence?
Click to expand...

Bombardier should be footing the bill for this.
 
the lemur said:
Just saw 4420 pulling into the Long Branch loop. Not sure if it was testing and unable to take a picture as I was driving.

And then I saw 4000 at Bathurst and Lake Shore. The newest and the oldest in one day!
Click to expand...

Saw 4420 earlier today at Park Lawn and Lakeshore. I hope they finished the run in and can get it into service this week.
 
Depending what takes place over the long weekend, 4420 could be in service between May 18 to May 23, with May 20 being the day.
 
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