I'm glad I sleep on decisions before making any. I've got to be honest...I was about to sell yesterday. Really. It is easy for me to obscess about small issues like (once again) QAI missing a date promised in a PR. I take these small things, stew about them for hours and days, and turn them (in my head) into these glaring examples of the ultimate truths of a situation. I of course do this without looking at any other facts which are available and which I know to be real and good.
So instead of hitting the "SELL" button yesterday, I took a walk and cooled off (actually, I sweated my arse off). As I think about "my company" and what the leadership is up to, I consider these points:
-In regards to the core mission:
We are an aerospace company led by a man who has no aerospace experience. I was concerned a few weeks ago that we were losing sight of this vision and spreading too thin. I then realized that we are only an aerospace company because Dean found some deals within the aerospace industry...if he had found deals in the kosher dill pickle industry, we could just as easily be a pickle company. What we end up being doesn't matter as long as it is wildly profitable. The fact that he is supposedly spread thin is a bit of a concern, but we don't honestly know enough about what is going on to really know whether he is actually spread thin or not.
-In regards to the status of the loan:
That fact that he has not mentioned money at all in the last month is curious to me. When people don't talk about the elephant in the room, it either means they don't want to, or they can't. Obviously there are a lot of reasons why he wouldn't want to talk about the status of the loans, but given that we just saw last week that he is going out to bid for the corporate headquarters, it might be wise to think about what that means. If funding was in jeopardy, he would not be doing this.
-In regards to acquisitions:
They are all waiting. Every one of them. Why would they wait? Why wouldn't they just put themselves out there to be sold to whomever comes along? Two possibilities in my mind. Possibility #1 is that they are actually not worth anything and probably aren't marketable. I suppose this is a possibility, but given that the resurgence of the aerospace industry has been ALL OVER THE NEWS lately, I find it hard to believe that aerospace companies would chose a time like now to fold up. Possibility #2 is that these companies are only for sale to QAI and not really available on the open market. If this were the case, than why? If Dean relayed some of his master plans to the movers and shakers within those companies, and then said they could be a big part of it, do you suppose they liked (very much) what they saw and then made themselves available for acquiring? If they are all willing to wait around until QAI finally gets their ducks lined up than either they are desparate to be purchased, or they are willing to wait because of what is in store once the deals close. I find possibility #2 to be far more likely than possibility #1 given the current state of the economy and the status of the aerospace industry.
-In regards to information:
I need to keep telling myself that Dean doesn't give a rat's ass about shareholders at this time. He just doesn't. He has stated multiple times both in private conversation and publicly that his #1 commitment is to the development and growing of the company. There was a time where our sentiment was integral in this core mission as he needed to sell shares. Yeah, that sucks, but it is as true as the day is long. Now that he has no more shares to sell, we are out of the loop. It is easy to think that being out of the loop means we are being taken for a ride, but in truth, much of this company is unknown to all of us, and it is painfully obvious that info is available on a "Need to Know" basis. We don't need to know anything as we've already done our part...bought shares and ate up the A/S. Now it is up to QAI to get the job done. They haven't provided us a whole lot of happy thoughts along the way, but the fact that officers within the company hold millions of shares and it seems as though they haven't sold any, speaks to me. What also speaks to me is that the old man obviously only cares about getting the job done. I think he has been F'd by a number of people along the way and I think he is slowly learning from these gross errors.
So that is what has been going through my head. I'm back to just being irritated instead of madly ranting around about things I have no control over. My accounts are worth a small fraction of their original value so to sell now would be to claim utter defeat. Also, by selling now I don't recoup enough to even make it worth it. To sell is to call the last year of my life an entire waste with no possibility of recovery. To hold is to acknowledge that something is obviously going on and that the potential for reward exceeds the potential for loss. At this point, we've already lost a ton of money, and to lose the rest of it doesn't really hurt much more than we've already been hurt. Kind of like fearing a stubbed toe after you've broken your leg...
Think about what you know and think about what you don't know.
That is all.
All statements and conversations above are created in my head and are of my own opinion.
AI
