ExpressJet (XJT)

[downsideup]

I don't expect any management to have a perfect crystal ball...

But I do see that the same rocks you are throwing at them, you could just as well throw at all the investors (including yourself ?) who didn't sell when the shares had run up from $2 to over $3 on takeover speculation ??? Or, as a SKYW shareholder you could ask "what were our management thinking, offering that much for that company...?"

Why do you expect either management would have known any better than other investors what was going to happen next ???

I still see that management made rational choices... to liberate the company from the onerous anti-competitive provisions of the CAL contract... which rationally would have allowed them to make the airline worth a lot more than it ever would be as a SKYW subsidiary still saddled by the CAL contract provisions. And that new, expanded potential still exists... even with the share price where it is now.

I don't like what appears to be their tacit cooperation in the market events around the buyout of half the notes... and haven't been an apologist for them where I disagree with them... which still doesn't mean that every decision they've made was fully predictable as wrong in its inevitable result when the decisions were made.

If I were them, in the situation they were in re CAL and SKYW, I'd probably have done something much like what they did...

If I were them in the situation they were in relative to the notes... I expect I would have made very different choices.

My overall analysis of the management is that it seems they are really pretty good at operating an airline... but are not all that good in the strategic and tactical maneuver in corporate governance, where it seems they have been led around by the nose by their financial advisers. The CFO got fired... too late for that do any good for shareholders. Management seems not to have the financial market skills they need to be able to do the job that shareholders need done. I expect the new owners... like it that way. Looking forward, you likely can't honestly claim to be surprised by the impact of that now known situation...