Friday, November 16, 2012

Qatar Airways leaves Cargolux

My Orchids. Phalaneopsis. Photo ET


So that seems to be the logical and indeed sad conclusion of a murky mismatch caused at the hands of the Luxembourg government. The hasty and secret deal with QR bears many marks of incompetent, ill advised, confused, legally questionable and otherwise incomprehensible strategies. Except on the Qatari side, which had a vision tied to their own business plan, negotiating skills that provided for a very good deal with a new partner which obviously was extremely weak, superficial and according to the chief Qatari negotiator, “incompetent”!
The only flaw in the Qatari concept (and its Luxembourg allies) was that it is not foreseeable in Qatari culture that public opinion and unions might beat you back. It is a hard lesson learnt, also for the Luxembourg government, that by being careless, unprepared, uncoordinated and incompetent you jeopardize international relations because of your behavior. And don’t come up again with the excuse that chit chat ruined your marvelous project. By the way, try to buy back QR’s 35% for $1, not $117.5 million. That’s the value of Cargolux clients taken by QR during this venture.
There is a plan B. Please, reassure us that negotiators on our side are not the same again! And please sell new shares to the newcomers to raise cash, not those belonging to the crowd that jumps off!
Unfortunately, there is more to come. From a 2010 profit for CV, losses are back due to the loss of clients and tough economic times. There were also 18 months of lost opportunity during this failed marriage. Together, that will still be a tough situation to correct.

1 comment:

  1. Just saw your news, thanks for posting it, and what you have written is true, I hope that the government will at last see some sense!

    ReplyDelete