Virgin America in the news

[waveflyer]

A rash of current reports across the nation today

Salt Lake City
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/58500272-79/virgin-america-airline-airlines.html.csp

San Jose
http://www.mercurynews.com/business...erica-ipo-doubted-same-reasons-travelers-love

Seattle
http://seattletimes.com/html/travel/2024733029_airlineservicexml.html

Motley Fool with a JetBlue twist
http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...e-or-rivalry-jetblue-and-virgin-americ-2.aspx

Prince George citizen
http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/...ange-its-ways-to-please-wall-street-1.1419370

""You can be McDonald's, or you can be a fancy steakhouse," says Kaplan of Airline Weekly. "But if you're going to be a fancy steakhouse, you better not be charging McDonald's prices."

Daily Finance
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/10...t-happy-travelers-wall-street-virgin-america/

 

[waveflyer]

Most of us have friends who have landed at Virgin. They've hired when most everyone wasn't.
What's the line flyer view of them as a career?
Do you stick it out, or do you bail to the latest legacy hiring wave. I know friends in both schools of thought
What's the latest?

 

[cbrown1]

the first few articles are the same one. va also made a profit for 2013 and with oil in free fall and aa and us merging i can see an even larger profit for 2014.

 

[waveflyer]

Well I thought all of them were the same- but motley is different
My point was how much it was covered
A lot of AP stories don't get run
And each of the cities that did are VA cities or former cities (San Jose)

I like the optimism, but can you address the points in the article-
It's usually pretty easy to debunk a journalist, but there are points when it comes to an IPO
Motley is pretty interesting tOO THOUGH

 

[tzskipper]

Well I thought all of them were the same- but motley is different
My point was how much it was covered
A lot of AP stories don't get run
And each of the cities that did are VA cities or former cities (San Jose)

I like the optimism, but can you address the points in the article-
It's usually pretty easy to debunk a journalist, but there are points when it comes to an IPO
Motley is pretty interesting tOO THOUGH

Hi Wave-

Out of curiosity, I read through the S-1/A filing and also looked back at VA's past few years quarterly reports. I cannot speak to the level of "success" the IPO may be, but it does appear that the company is performing well financially. Based on last year's restructuring of their debt, and in addition, renegotiation of some ac leases, it appears that VA is on track for an annual operating margin this year of roughly (imo) 8% - 10% (let's guess $120m on $1.4bish in revenue). After subtracting out the "new" annual interest payments of $40m (I think... also, if you think the investors were taking it in the shorts, I found that prior to last year, annual interest expense paid was in the neighborhood of $120m), that leaves a net income this year of about $80m, or 10x last years.

Again, deciphering an IPO is way above my pay grade regarding how the company will be valued, as I believe only a portion of the company may be offered. Post IPO however, two things from the S1 stood out (if I read it correctly); first, the only debt remaining will be a $50m note, and second, the cc companies will release $100m in hold-back monies back to VA. I believe I read Virgin Group intends to provide a letter of credit to satisfy the cc companies, should VA default.

Long story short, in reading the filing, it appears that post IPO the company's balance sheet will be significantly enhanced, there will be cash in the bank and the company's margins will improve, if for no other reason than the amount of interest paid will be significantly reduced. Imo, the company will be positioned to grow organically, or participate in a "friendly" merger in the future.

Again; all of this is just my opinion derived from reading posted financial documents. The author could have done the same, but probably did not want to waste an hour actually doing some critical thinking.

S

 

[waveflyer]

Pretty standard aviation reporting tz!
That's the purpose of the thread- I always get curious when the PR machine gets going in a particular direction and just wondered what current VA pilots thought

 

[SpauldingSmails]

TZ, sidebar. Was that the 2 letter ident for ATA?

 

[pilotpm]

TZ, sidebar. Was that the 2 letter ident for ATA?

As a former Tango Zulu Warrior I can say, yes sir you are correct.

 

[SpauldingSmails]

Cool. I've had the pleasure of working with a handful of ex-ATA guys at my former carrier - one went on to VA as well.

For all that happened to those guys with the collapse of their company, they took their lumps pretty well - all were a class act.

 

[bri5150]

Fwiw, the article is wrong about Vx's financials first half of this year. After 2q2014 there is a net profit of $14.6 million. I have seen one retraction.

https://www.virginamerica.com/cms/a...ica-reports-second-quarter-2014-earnings.html

 

[Tomct]

TZ, you are pretty much spot on. We haven't seen the numbers yet, but I hear 3rd qtr numbers exceeded what even THEY thought we were going to make. My guess was between 75-100Mill net profit for the year. I'll take it...I'm also in the thought process that a merger is definitely in the near future. Hopefully our "fence sitters" will wake up after we get screwed on the IPO money and we vote in ALPA ASAP. Either way, we need ALPA....enough of giving to the company for nothing in return.

 

[Flydaplane]

Flew on my first VA flight yesterday as a paying customer. Absolutely outstanding! Well done everyone from the gate agents, flight attendants, even the annoying PA's were understandable and timed just right. Note, I only paid $201 for the ticket and that's why I took them, then next cheapest ticket was $435. The could've charged $425 and I would have taken them....lucky for me (and bad for them) they didn't. Flight was about 87% full. Still, if they flew to my home city I'd take them even if they cost $10-20 more, but alas they don't...yet.

 

[St. Nic]

Cool. I've had the pleasure of working with a handful of ex-ATA guys at my former carrier - one went on to VA as well.

For all that happened to those guys with the collapse of their company, they took their lumps pretty well - all were a class act.

And just think, the ATA guys could have been stapled to the America West list and told how lucky they are to be Westicles. Because America West saves everybody. Just ask a westicle.

 

[sniper]

And just think, the ATA guys could have been stapled to the America West list and told how lucky they are to be Westicles. Because America West saves everybody. Just ask a westicle.

They saved your a----

FYI I don't work at the new American

 

[tailhookah]

Virgin Blue? Easy swap and those blue chips suck anyways.

 

[Andy]

Again, deciphering an IPO is way above my pay grade regarding how the company will be valued, as I believe only a portion of the company may be offered. Post IPO however, two things from the S1 stood out (if I read it correctly); first, the only debt remaining will be a $50m note, and second, the cc companies will release $100m in hold-back monies back to VA. I believe I read Virgin Group intends to provide a letter of credit to satisfy the cc companies, should VA default.

PMFJI, but since VX is about to IPO, I wanted to make sure I comment on the above statement.

Pay particular attention to the term 'Related Party Notes'. Those are interest bearing debt that is convertible to stock at various prices. They are written as warrants, and there is currently ~$725 million in Related Party Notes.

Read the Capitalization section of the S-1 closely.
The IPO will go out at $23/sh, allowing VX to pay down $157M in Related Party Notes. That still leaves just under $570M of interest bearing debt on the balance sheet.
The Pro Forma column assumes all warrants have been executed, which would result in severe shareholder dilution.

The $100M in credit card holdback, released after Virgin Group provides a Letter of Credit Facility, will go to paying off more of those Related Party Notes so VX will have $470M of interest bearing debt.

However, the Virgin Group is charging VX $5M/yr for the Letter of Credit facility so VX is still paying money each year - it just won't show up on the balance sheet as interest on debt.

With oil prices dropping, the IPO will probably do OK (VX was 38% hedged for the following 12 mos from 30Sep14). The IPO will be priced at $23/sh and IPOs are priced to rise in initial trading. I wouldn't be surprised to see the stock rise to $30+ in the first few months.

I would, however, urge extreme caution as end of the 180 day lockup period approaches. There are a lot of warrants with exercise prices below $1, and Branson has a big incentive to dump stock on US investors so that he can exercise warrants and still remain below foreign ownership requirements. Branson took major haircuts on the two restructurings prior to the IPO.

S-1 link: http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/filing.ashx?filingid=9846757#D761206DS1A_HTM_TOC761206_8

 

[tzskipper]

From the prospectus

Fwiw:

We anticipate that, after consummation of the transactions contemplated by the 2014 Recapitalization
Agreement and upon the closing of this offering, only the Post-IPO Note, and none of the Related-Party Notes or
the Related-Party Warrants, would remain outstanding, and each of our issued and outstanding share of our
convertible preferred stock and Class A, Class A-1, Class B, Class C and Class G common stock would be
converted into one share of common stock. Based on an assumed initial public offering price of $22.50 per share
(the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover of this prospectus), we do not anticipate that any warrants
to purchase common stock will be outstanding upon the closing of this offering.

 

[Andy]

TZ Skipper, thanks for the citing from the S-1; I found it buried. I'd have to dig into how they're dealing with oversubscriptions and stock available for sale for the IPO, but I question how a company that does a $307M IPO can extinguish $725M in debt. The math doesn't add up.
We'll have to wait for Q4 numbers before we can conclusively state how much debt the post-IPO company is carrying. When options are available (and as long as they're not too pricey), I plan on buying some puts, preferably ones dated after mid-May 2015.

The stock's had a nice move up on the IPO (as expected) but if it closes close to flat (where it's now headed) would not be a good sign of things to come.

 

[tzskipper]

The debt has been converted to equity, since it was investor debt plus interest?

Pro Forma post IPO long term debt was estimated in the prospectus as being $117,926m. Post IPO cash and cash equivalents of $398,978m.

I would have cut and pasted, but the margins/columns get screwed up...

 

[Andy]

No, some of the warrants that convert from debt to equity have a conversion rate in excess of $100/share. And there would be massive shareholder dilution from the conversions.

Edit: Pro Forma shows 100% debt to equity conversion. That's not going to happen. IMHO, the S-1 threads a very thin needle on legalities - it's extremely deceptive.