News: VAH Virgin Australia Announces Unlimited Booking Changes With No Fees Until 2021, page-8

They didn't run the company into administration! Administration – in the form of a global pandemic – ran smack into the company.

I will accept it if you say the company had been appallingly badly managed, even by airline standards. But that process was clearly evident to all investors who did due diligence... which is the reason why I never made any investment in Virgin Australia prior to 2020.

With the appointment of the new CEO there were clear signs of improvement. And the acquisition of the all of Velocity, which was group profit accretive after all finance costs, was a particularly strong move. That's why I bought at that time. I bought the bonds, which were backed by guarantees from s significant number of related multi-national organisations.

Without a national and global shutdown of air passenger traffic there is every indication that VIrgin Australia would have continued to operate, and might conceivably have become profitable. Perhaps.

But that's as may be. The enterprise was still crippled by debt and had no reserves or facilities to fall back on when business became impossible. So failure was inevitable. That's why I sold as soon as the government made it clear that they weren't prepared to provide support.

So we investors, who knowingly invested in a severely weakened business, understanding that it had no chance of weathering any significant shocks, got hit on this one and took a haircut.

I understand the bitterness of making a risky call and then getting belted. This is far from my first time. But are you angry at the right person?