Originally Posted by
yscleo
AC sold ae out for money. AC and ae depended on each other and it'll be good business to keep each other running well. AC then announced cutting ties to ae, driving down the share prices, and now come back to offer to buy it back on the cheap. That is not business as usual.
Dirty. Sleezy. Betrayal. Maybe you operate like that. But AC definitely damaged its name and reputation. If AC wants to spin ae out for money again, everyone knows AC is a dirty/sleezy/underhanded partner.
So in your world view, Aimia are an innocent victim in this?
OK, but that's not my view. My read is that Aimia was spun off as a separate business a full 15 years ago. For that entire time, they have known that the contract with AC was up for renewal (and thus, potentially ending) in 2020. Despite this knowledge, in 15 years Aimia failed to diversify their customer base. Now, their primary customer is walking away, and Aimia are in desperate straits as a result.
If Aimia had done a proper job of diversifying and expanding their operations and their customer base, then the loss of a single customer (AC) would not have had a significant impact on their stock price. AC may still have wished to purchase the Aeroplan assets, in order to ease the transition of their (AC) customers from Aimia's loyalty program to AC's loyalty program .... but if Aimia had done a proper job over the past 15 years, then AC would have had to pay a premium for those assets.
The collapse of Aimia's stock price is entirely due to Aimia's lack of execution and business accumen over the past 15 years. Your anger (Dirty, Sleazy, Betrayal) seems like a reasonable set of emotions for how an Aimia shareholder should be feeling about the Aimia board. AC were just a customer who decided to walk away.