The Canadian Investor - What Recent Earnings Reveal About These 4 Canadian Stocks

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

Simon and Dan are back with another earnings-driven episode — this time focused entirely on Canadian companies. They dig into a fresh batch of results across insurance, commodities, transportati...on, and airlines, discussing what’s actually driving performance beneath the headlines, why some stocks are pulling back despite strong fundamentals, and how different business models are holding up in a slowing economy. The conversation touches on operating leverage, cash flow trends, balance sheet strength, cyclical pressures, and how today’s environment is reshaping investor sentiment — including where AI could become a tailwind versus a real threat. They also explore why more “real-world” businesses may be starting to look attractive again after years of being overlooked. Expect a mix of earnings analysis, macro context, capital allocation discussion, and a few candid rants along the way. Tickers discussed: IFC.TO, AEM.TO, TFII.TO, AC.TO   Watch the full video on Our New Youtube Channel! Check out our portfolio by going to Jointci.com Our Website Canadian Investor Podcast Network Twitter: @cdn_investing Simon’s twitter: @Fiat_Iceberg Braden’s twitter: @BradoCapital Dan’s Twitter: @stocktrades_ca Want to learn more about Real Estate Investing? Check out the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast! Apple Podcast - The Canadian Real Estate Investor  Spotify - The Canadian Real Estate Investor  Web player - The Canadian Real Estate Investor Asset Allocation ETFs | BMO Global Asset Management Sign up for Fiscal.ai for free to get easy access to global stock coverage and powerful AI investing tools. Register for EQ Bank, the seamless digital banking experience with better rates and no nonsense.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:49 If there's uncertainty in the markets, there's going to be some great opportunities for investors. This has to be one of the biggest quarters I've seen from this company in quite some time. Welcome back to the Canadian Investor podcast. I'm Simone Berengen back with Dan Kent. We are back for this second episode of News and Earnings. So like we said on Thursday, we do another one this week because there's a lot of earnings going on. I think this will be a fun one. Some different companies, of course, but some names that will be familiar with people.
Starting point is 00:01:25 So we'll be talking about some Canadian names here. Actually, mostly all Canadian names. I didn't realize, yeah. This is an all Canadian episode. We're true to the name of the podcast. I think it'll be fun. We have, yeah, some well-known names. I don't want to reveal too much, so you'll have to keep listening.
Starting point is 00:01:43 So let's get started, Dan. After, actually, before we get started, we're recording this on Wednesday, February 18th. So I think you may have heard us on Thursday talking about the Canada game. So we were able to catch the last four minutes of the third period to see Canada tie the game. and then, of course, win the game in overtime from a wonderful goal from Mitch Marner. Yes. So take that Leaves fan. He's a pretty good player, it looks like.
Starting point is 00:02:12 He's pretty clutch when he's wearing the red Maple Leaf. Yeah, exactly, the red Maple Leaf. No, exactly. But, yeah, not a bad deaf player for Team Canada. That's what we're talking about. But enough about hockey, let's get started. First on the slate here, intact financial. So I think the best performing Canadian insurer, right?
Starting point is 00:02:31 Yeah, I mean, it's a broad category granted, but yeah. Yeah, the life insurance companies have kind of outpaced it over the last while, but that's right. Yeah. Yeah. for quite a while. I mean, it's been a rock solid compounder for a very long time. It's going through a bit of a drawdown now, so I figure it would be kind of good to talk about it. This is not unique to intact. Like, if you think of Fairfax, they have an insurance arm, PNC insurance arm,
Starting point is 00:03:18 Berkshire does with Geico. Like, pretty much all of these companies' insurance areas are not doing all that good. They're not doing bad, but they're just not doing as good as they were. during the pandemic. And primarily, like a lot of these insurance companies during the pandemic were they were printing cash. I mean, they, like a lot of these insurance companies will take premiums collected and they'll just buy risk-free assets and earn a return for a very long time. Obviously, those risk-free assets paid nothing because we had post-financial crisis rates were very low.
Starting point is 00:03:54 And then we had, you know, COVID. They got even lower. But then they kind of skyrocketed. So a lot of these companies had pretty high investment income that they were making off of those. But we're starting to see a bit of normalization in this regard, kind of a leveling out. So net operating income per share came in at $5.50, which was well ahead of $4.70 analyst estimates. And full year net operating income per share came in 33% higher.
Starting point is 00:04:23 So it's a very good year for insurance companies, sorry, for intact. And I will explain why the stock price just hasn't really. reflected this, but the combined ratio came in at 88.2%. This is very low. And again, I'll, I'll explain why. But for people who don't really know the insurance sector very well, your noips, your net operating income per share, it's kind of the money the money the company makes from insurance. So it might sound confusing, but insurance companies make money in a lot of ways. Again, market gains would be one thing. Gains on equities will show up in earnings, but not in that noips. And then the combined ratio would be pretty,
Starting point is 00:04:59 Premiums collected to premiums paid. So 88.2% is saying for every $1 in premiums they collect, they're paying out around $88.2 in claims. This doesn't seem that good, but for a P&C insurer, this is very, very good. It's actually best in class. So when you get these types of numbers, like the net operating income per share,
Starting point is 00:05:19 you're just focusing on the insurance area of the business, kind of what they do best, which is why they kind of isolate that out. their Canadian personal property area, like their arm, has a 76% combined ratio, which would be exceptional for a lot of these companies. And one of the main drags on the business has been UK operations. So premiums are falling year over year, but the company did mention it could increase the premiums, but instead it's just looking for quality over quantity.
Starting point is 00:05:49 The company got thrashed over the last few years in terms of catastrophe losses in that area. So I don't really think they have a huge appetite for growth there, but I mean, you'll never know in the future. But, and again, when you look at like these results, you would think, you know, the stock is going up. But we're at a pretty big drawdown. We're in like, I don't know, I believe it got up to 300 a share and we're now at 260. And the reasoning for this is the market will generally reward these insurers more in what they call a hard market. So this means growth is coming from pricing increases, charging more for prices, charging more for, premium, stuff like that. And what the market would view as more of a low quality growth is a
Starting point is 00:06:32 reduction in claims. So this is kind of what they're seeing right now. Management can't do anything about it. It's just something that's going to fluctuate wildly. And the reasoning for this is the company did not face a lot of catastrophe losses this year. So it was a pretty easy year. I mean, like wild, like there's always something going on in regards to wildfires, in regards the floods, cost these insurance companies, a ton of money. And they just didn't really see it last year, which is why you see these huge results. But like, the market would kind of probably deem this an easy year for the company. And, you know, they're not, they're not going to reward it all that much when it was really a reduction in claims,
Starting point is 00:07:13 which is just going to level out. There's going to be another year where catastrophes go through the roof and it kind of levels out. So that said, I mean, I like it long term. just, you know, kind of went through a bit of an easy year, as I mentioned. They got their debt to capital ratio back down to, like, below historical averages. And this company is known to make some pretty big deals on the insurance front, which it should be able to do now. But, yeah, it's a pretty good year.
Starting point is 00:07:43 Okay. No, that's a good way. I don't know these insurers all that well. Like I've said before, again, most of my insurance exposure through, I guess, index funds and also Berkshire Hathaway. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. One more thing about this.
Starting point is 00:07:57 They said they trimmed about $150 million worth of expenses in the year from AI. So whether it be like underwriting or I think AI underwriting or sorry, AI underwriting is inevitability moving forward. It just depends on when it's fully deployed. Yeah. No, that's interesting. I guess we're seeing more industries, seeing some benefits from AI. year. The one I have next on the slate, Agneco Eagle. I was really looking forward to this one because it's one of, I think it's number two in terms of the largest gold mining companies that are
Starting point is 00:08:34 publicly listed in the world, I think just behind Newmont. So just interested to see how it would look for them and you may have guessed it. It was a pretty amazing quarter for Gniko. So revenues hit a record high of 3.6 billion. Obviously, I think that was to be expected, giving the price of gold, but something I'm just going to show here my screen for a joint TCI subscribers, and you'll actually see the growth here. And you can, like, of course, a company like Agniko and most miners will be heavily dependent on the price of gold, but it's just been a straight line-up. So it's not just last year, but gold has been going up steadily over quite some time now. And for them and other gold miners, it's going up faster than they're all in sustainable costs.
Starting point is 00:09:32 So they're essentially printing money right now. And I mean, we're going to see a slew of these type of earnings coming out now. I think there's going to be quite a few miners that will be reporting in the next few weeks. I know Franco Nevada, a streamer is reporting mid. March. They're Q4, so they're always a bit late when they report, but I think it's just going to be more earnings that will be similar to this. So net income tripled on a year-over-year basis and was up 50% versus the previous quarter, not year-over-year. So 50%, actually, no, triple, yeah, on the year-over-year business and was up 50% just versus Q3.
Starting point is 00:10:14 Just to give people an idea. Yeah, sequentially. Got confused with my notes here. And the average realized goal the price was 4,163 and that was up 53% you over a year and 20% sequentially. And they're all in sustainable costs, increased 15% you over year to 1517. So it increased quite a bit. As you can see, the increase is definitely not as large as the realized price that they were able to get for goal. And it's really important to just keep an eye on those two. and of course, let's keep in mind here that the average price for Q4 was 4163, like I just said.
Starting point is 00:10:55 Year to date, the price of gold has been above 4,300 every single day, and if you average it out, I think it's probably around 4,900. So you can just start thinking about what 2026 will look like, and it could be a really amazing year. Of course, dependent on the price of gold, so it could pull. hold back from here. But I just wanted to just kind of explain that to people because they may see the price. It's trading at 25 trailing 12 months price to earnings, but that was based on a realized price of gold for last year of 3454. So how will those earnings look if it's 4,500, the average price this year or maybe even 5K? It's probably going like trading right now at a 4,000.
Starting point is 00:11:45 priced earning of 14 to 17 depending what you think the price of the realized price of gold will be whether it'll be closer to 4,500 or closer to 5K or maybe it's trading at a higher multiple because you think it's going to have a pullback. But the longer we are at these elevated prices, the longer like the more you can make the case that, you know, it's actually trading pretty cheaply because of course, I mean, the further we get into the year, the more that average realized price will be high. But in terms of free cash flow, they generated $4.4 billion last year, which was a double from the previous year. In terms of guidance, they are guiding for all and sustainable costs of $1475 for the upcoming quarter. So that's interesting because it actually
Starting point is 00:12:35 will be lower if they hit the midpoint compared to Q4 of last year. The range was they definitely provided a range here. So it could be around the same. price as last year. And they're looking to increase their annual gold production by 20 to 30% over the next decade with a target of 4 million ounces by 2023. They're currently just shy of 3.5 million ounces. So they're increasing their investment in some of their key gold projects to try and achieve those target.
Starting point is 00:13:04 And it's obviously really good quarter from then. It's one of the better gold miners in terms of quality, especially in terms of the exposure that they have for the most part. They have some good diversification and political risk is relatively on the lower end side for them compared to some of the other gold miners out there. So definitely really, really impressive. It's probably going to be a lot of that when you start seeing miners report in the upcoming months.
Starting point is 00:13:37 Yeah, I think a lot of high quality miners as well, like Agniko. It's funny, I think I, think I, I told you this. I ended up buying this in like a family member's account in 2022. And they just messaged me like a month ago. They're like, what should I do with this thing? And I'm like, oh, what thing? And they're like, Agniko. It's like, holy, I completely forgot. I bought that for you. Yeah, it's crazy. You're welcome. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, it's done very well. I mean, back in, so at the end of 2023, they had $1.7 billion U.S. dollars in debt. And now they're net cash, two billion. It's crazy.
Starting point is 00:14:13 Yeah, it's crazy. You know what's funny is that people were so bearish on gold miners like two, three, four years ago. And now they oddly look like pretty compelling plays. Even if you're not like a super big believer in the prices of gold, but you can see the monetary value for them and the reason why there's a lot of demand for gold. I mean, I think more and more people are starting to look at miners. They're like, well, would I rather? invest in that or invest in a company that could be disrupted by AI.
Starting point is 00:14:48 Yeah. You know, I mean, I think more and more people are kind of waking up to the fact that maybe these kind of businesses that are relying on commodities are not as risky as I previously thought. I mean, there's still some risk. There's still going to be cyclical. Next to them, and dependent on the price of the commodity. But when you have so many unknowns with AI, it does make those risk look.
Starting point is 00:15:13 Not as bad as they used to, that's for sure. And you could argue, like, a lot of them were kind of chronically undervalued as well. Yeah, yeah. For quite a while because there was just not a lot of interest in the space. But now all of a sudden gold is up a ton and there's a ton of interest in the space. That's it. Yeah. Having cash on hand is essential for any business.
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Starting point is 00:16:13 We use it for our own business, and it's the first account that actually helps our money work harder while keeping operations simple. Check it out today at EQBank.ca slash business. So moving on to another company that a lot of people were probably down on? Definitely bought them quite a, what, maybe a year ago, roughly? No, I don't think. It was later than that. Later than that? Let me see here.
Starting point is 00:16:40 Anyways, we're talking about TFI International. Back in November. You could say April, November. I thought it was before that. Okay. It's pretty cool. Like, it bottomed in early 2025, but then just traded flat for like the better part of the entire year. But, yeah, this one I did the notes last minute here.
Starting point is 00:16:59 The results were bad but good, I guess. You could say if that makes any sense. Like, the environment is pretty brutal for these trucking companies. If you see the railway strike. struggling, which they are. You're probably going to see the trucking company struggle even more. Yeah. Just because it's kind of the after point of those railways. So revenue declined 7.8%. Operating income fell 20%. Net income fell 18.6% and earnings were down around 8.4%. This is this quarter compared to last year, the quarter last year. When you look to year, sorry, like full year,
Starting point is 00:17:38 it's kind of the same story. A lot of areas are declining. The only thing that's going up is free cash flow. So company's scaling back spending. That's a good thing to have going up. Yeah. Yeah. Because they're scaling back spending.
Starting point is 00:17:52 They're kind of going to ultra-conservative. Free cash flow is up 25% year over year. That would be the fourth quarter compared to fourth quarter last year. Full year, it's still up double digits. But yeah, I mean, they're kind of stockpiling cash right now, which, you know, they're getting ready to probably lay out in terms of acquisitions and buybacks, but I'll get to that in a bit. Operating ratios came in at 92.3%.
Starting point is 00:18:17 This is a, they do the same as the railways. They reverse it. It's like the reverse operating margin. So you're looking at like 6.7 or no, sorry, 7.7%. I don't know why. Yeah, lower is better. It's just the opposite, right? So lower is better versus operating margins and higher is better.
Starting point is 00:18:36 Yeah. 92.3% operating ratio is about a 7.3, 7.7% operating margin. So just to give you an idea of how much more efficient the railways are, like CP has an operating ratio in the mid 50% range. They were mid 50s last quarter. Yeah. So not as high a margin of the business as business as the railways, very cyclical. And the low point in terms of trucking on their end from an operating ratio standpoint is their truckloads. segment. So there's kind of excess capacity right now, which is ultimately hitting prices, which hits your margins. I think pricing has been a big thing. You know, they realized a ton of, well, I mean, it would be insane demand during the pandemic. Obviously, when trucks are full, you can charge more for the rates and they're kind of seeing the opposite of that right now. The company is holding off on rate increases until mid-March, like pricing increases.
Starting point is 00:19:33 They had mentioned, I mean, I don't pay attention enough to the space to know this. but they mentioned that many competitors have already increased prices. So they want to kind of ensure that utilization is high enough to justify increasing prices. So you don't kind of crater demand. And it's pretty clear that they see an improving environment in the future because they got to do around 300 million in acquisitions next year. And they're going to, they're starting to buy back a ton of shares. They're increasing the dividend. And I don't know if it probably would have been close to a year ago, maybe a little bit longer.
Starting point is 00:20:05 but they had that conference call. I think they felt like 30 plus percent in a single day. Yeah, well, he was saying basically they were in that freight recession, right? And they had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They had no idea.
Starting point is 00:20:18 They wouldn't issue guidance. They pretty much said they have no idea what's going to happen in the future. So, I mean, when somebody, when a management team says that and then kind of flips around and is doing this now, you can probably expect that they'd be in, you know, they probably see a path forward now. So they're going to lay out some cash. The one thing they did mention is there won't be any deals of size. So they said they're not going to make any deals of size until the trade situation is involved. Or sorry, resolved.
Starting point is 00:20:48 I mean, if that happens recently, who knows? Yeah. Seems to change. They may have to wait a long time. And I'm not even saying like just the end of Trump's term. Like I think people have to get comfortable with just more uncertainty on the trade front, whoever is in the White House in the U.S., I think. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:07 And even globally, I think it's just something we'll have to get used to. Yeah. Yeah, it might never result. Like, they did mention that they don't expect any sort of resolution until like the end of 2027. But there is that the Kuzma deal or whatever in 2020. When is that June or something? I'm not sure.
Starting point is 00:21:29 It's negotiations, I think, are going to start soon. Yeah. So that's a big, yeah, that's no. notable as well. But, I mean, tuck-in acquisitions is pretty much all they said to expect. They did a very good job during COVID doing this. Like a lot of the trucking companies were going bankrupt pretty much during the lockdowns and peak COVID and TFI bought a bunch of them up. Kind of merged them into the fold and did very well. Guidance was pretty conservative. Same reason. They said there's too many shippers that are kind of sitting on the fence, petting a new trade deal.
Starting point is 00:22:01 They kind of mentioned the less than truckload market remains soft, likely due to weak consumers. But I mean, they kind of have the balance sheet to weather any sort of storm it gets hit with. I think, you know, this one, like TFI at the bottom of the cycle will probably work out pretty well. I would say I think it's the best trucking company in North America. And there ended up being that this is kind of beside earnings, but this was a few days ago. They had that AI system for logistics and the trucking companies bombed. on it. I think they felt like 10 or 12%. Yeah, I think I heard something.
Starting point is 00:22:35 Yeah, something about that. Some sort of platform that it can handle, so pretty much you can handle the logistics side of the trucking business in, you know, a fraction of time with less people. So the scheduling, all that type of stuff. But they've kind of recovered a bit from that. But I mean, again, it seems like it's in every industry. You put out a piece of PR on AI. Yeah, AI.
Starting point is 00:23:00 Yeah, your stock's going to bomb. Yeah, I think Claude really just heightened fears of AI on just what it can't do. And now people are just starting to think AI is going to disrupt every single industry. Like, that's what it sounds like where I think it's going to disrupt some. We've talked about it time and time again. But I also think it's going to be a tail win or even like it will provide efficiency for other companies where the efficiency you'll outweigh the disruption. Yeah, I think at the end of the day, that's a calculation you have to make.
Starting point is 00:23:35 Is the efficiency it provides? Will it outweigh the potential disruption that it will have on the business? And if so, then it's probably overdone and like a good investment, like obviously depending on which company or which sector you're looking at. So I think that's how I'm looking at it. And on Monday, we have an episode coming up about industries. We think that won't be disrupted by AI. So keep that in mind.
Starting point is 00:24:00 We're looking at a few industries, but I think you'll understand the reasoning behind it. A lot of it, honestly, they're just industries where it's just things, they're physical industries. Like, I think lack of better words, I think that's probably the best way to put it. Yeah, like real world type stuff. Yeah. That, you know, can't easily be destroyed. The boring companies that are coming back in. They're becoming more and more popular, which is probably good for both our portfolios,
Starting point is 00:24:27 because we both have a decent chunk of those types of. and businesses, which we probably looked stupid for last few years, but now are looking pretty, pretty smart. Yeah, yeah, hopefully. Having cash on hand is essential for any business. Traditional business accounts hit you with high fees while paying little to no interest on the cash you need for day-to-day operations. That was our experience, too,
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Starting point is 00:25:34 Okay, so next one on the list here, Air Canada. Always interesting to see what they have to say, especially with what's going on. We travel in the U.S. Obviously, it's no surprise to anyone that travel from Canadians to the U.S. has definitely plummeted. One of the downsides from the U.S. perspective from Trump's rhetoric.
Starting point is 00:25:57 Eric is I guess people are not as looking forward or anxious or willing to go to the U.S. and visit. So tourism is definitely, we should look actually at some of those resort companies in the U.S. see what kind of impact they've seen. That'll be interesting. What would be one? Like an MGM or something? No, that would be.
Starting point is 00:26:18 Yeah, I guess MGM, that's more hotels. I guess hotels could be one. I think there's some of the ski resorts. Mountain, the ticker, MTN, what's it called again? Vale Resorts would probably be a good one. Yeah, I think they have one in Canada, but I think most of their resorts are in the U.S. So that'll be interesting. But back to Air Canada, revenue was up 7% for Q4.
Starting point is 00:26:39 They generated a profit on a net income basis, which was an improvement over the loss from last, the year prior. For the full year, free cash flow was 747. Pretty sweet number for an airline company. 747. Yeah, exactly. It was down 42% versus 2024. International travel, especially at premium and overseas, was a key contributor to demand. They were able to shift almost all of the decline in travel to the U.S. destination to international offering. So people have been shifting from traveling to the U.S. to those international destination, and they saw six freedom revenue increase by 10%. I didn't know with that.
Starting point is 00:27:23 was I was like oh is this one of some kind of program that they offer but apparently no it's not it's for all airlines it's essentially revenue tied to travelers going between two foreign countries so they're able to do that by connecting to the home hub so for example you could have someone flying air Canada from like Columbia to Toronto and then going to Europe for example so there they wouldn't be able to do Colombia to Europe. They have to have that connection in the home country. I guess that's how it works. And those are like how the agreements in the airline industry works.
Starting point is 00:28:06 But essentially that they saw good growth in that. So it's crazy. It's a term I didn't know. And I've looked at airlines a decent amount. But most of their airline, yeah, exactly. I thought it was a program for Canada. Most of the airline specific metric improved for the year. However, revenue per available seat mile, which is the revenue for each seat that is available for sale,
Starting point is 00:28:29 continued to decline from the peaks of 2023. It was down 1.5% versus last year. So clearly, they are not able to charge as much as they were post-pandemic. That's not surprising, obviously, the economy is slowing down on the first hand. And also, you had all that pent-up demand from after the pandemic from people being locked down, wanting to get the hell out and visit, which, you know, not surprising, but you have that combined and you can see that that revenue per seat mile as trended in down. They repurchase a total of $850 million worth of shares last year and intend on continuing
Starting point is 00:29:08 to purchase shares pretty aggressively this year. I think they mentioned $2 billion worth Canadian. They're spending a lot on new aircraft and expect the KAPEX spending to peak this year and in 2027 before things start lowering a little bit on the CAPEX side. In terms of 2026 guidance, they expect adjusted EBITA between 3.35 billion and 3.75 billion. Capacity growth is projected to be at the midpoint around 4.5%. And free cash flow, they project it will be between 4 and 800 million. Again, I think a lot of it is that peak CAPEX spending. Overall, a pretty good quarter, I think, for Air Canada, considering some of the challenges that they're seeing in the airline industries and travel, again, with the shift in consumer behavior from the U.S. to other destination, some increased cap-expending, slowing economy.
Starting point is 00:30:07 The fact that they were still profitable on both a net income and free cash-fable basis, definitely encouraging. But, again, airlines, it's not an easy business. there's a reason why Buffett tried it twice and then said never again. And I'll be happy to cover their earnings, but unless they become severely undervalued and it becomes a deep value play and a no-brainer, I'm good at just looking on the sidelines here. Yeah, they're very difficult.
Starting point is 00:30:41 I think Buffett's like second go at it was quick too. He got in and out very quickly. I think that was, yeah, that was during COVID, I think. but I think it was right around pre-COVID. I think he got smashed with COVID or something like that. And then he's like never again or something. Yeah. Yeah, he sold airlines in 2020.
Starting point is 00:31:01 There's kind of a lot of rumors that, yeah, like he, you know, a lot of maybe if he was a big shareholder, like they would have come to him to get bailed out, like the Berkshire to get bailed out instead of. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it was. Yeah. I mean, Air Canada has gotten their debt. actually backed down probably by the end of the year they'll get it down to pre-pandemic levels.
Starting point is 00:31:25 So they peaked at $15.5 billion in 2021 and they're now down to 8.6. And in 2019, they finished the year at 8. So, I mean, what are you talking? One, two, three, four years later, they're finally almost done paying down the damage that the pandemic did to this company. And I mean, does the, do we still own? Like, do taxpayers still own Air Canada? I can't remember if that.
Starting point is 00:31:49 I don't know what the situation. Yeah, let's do a quick surge before we sign off here. I know it was at 25 bucks a share. I think the government bought a chunk of them, but I don't know if it's been, you know, if there was an exit there or not. No, I think according to AI overview from Google, in December of 2024,
Starting point is 00:32:11 the federal government sold its entire remaining 6.4% equity stake, which it had acquired in 2021 as part of the COVID, 19 pandemic support. Yeah. So I guess not. Yeah. So not everybody owns their Canada anymore. We're just a crisis away from the federal government bailing them out again, apparently.
Starting point is 00:32:31 Oh, yeah. Yeah, they, I mean, there's not enough. They just can't help themselves. Yeah. And there's not enough airlines here in Canada to not bail them out when they get into trouble. Well, yes and no. I mean, at the end of the day, if you go in bankruptcy, like, there's going to be someone
Starting point is 00:32:46 that will buy it, make the operation more efficient. and like I don't think it would go away, but we just get into, you know, they get pressure, they get like I'm sure the unions, people always think of worst case scenario, they think it's going to go away. But in reality, it would just, you know, the assets would be sold to like a new buyer, probably make things more efficient. And then it would still come out alive without taxpayer money. But that's not how governments do it.
Starting point is 00:33:14 Unfortunately, they just kind of jump in. And yeah, but hopefully, I don't know if they made money. Yeah. They did. Air Canada was like one of the best performing stocks coming out of the financial crisis. Because like emerging out of bankruptcy, it went from like $2 a share to over 60 leading up to the pandemic. It was crazy. But yeah, they're tough businesses to own long term, especially with price.
Starting point is 00:33:39 Like prices being such a pinch right now. Well, the problem too when you have, and I know like we're just finishing up here, but it's just a moral hazard that you create, right? So you saw pre-pandemic and probably these airlines kind of knowing that nothing really in the back of our head can't really happen to them. Government's going to bail you out. So they, especially in the U.S., and I think they're Canada as well, they just like kept buying back shares instead of building a reserve, preparing for a rainy day. And then obviously a Black Swan happens, but when you've been spending your money buying back shares and, you don't have much reserves, then you're kind of screwed or you turn to the government
Starting point is 00:34:22 to bail you out. And I think that's the problem is there's been too many bailouts across different industries and you get companies that make stupid capital allocations because they know at the end of the day governments are going to bail them out. Yeah. Yeah. It's well said. I mean, that's prime case for airlines.
Starting point is 00:34:42 It's happened time and time again, except Westjet. Westjet got the shab got the shabreyship. because they were, well, they got bought by Onyx. Yeah, I don't think Westchak got anything because they got bought by Onyx. Yeah, so it was Air Canada. It was the only one that got the bail. No, exactly. But, you know, just a bit of a rant.
Starting point is 00:34:59 I think that kind of money could be spent elsewhere, you know, to help Canadians that actually need it, not companies that spend the money in stupid spots and then need the bailout. But I think that's a good way, good place to end it. Hopefully you enjoy this episode. and apologies for the last minute rant, but sometimes you just have to do a rant because you got to say what you got to say, yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:26 You got to say what you got to say. But thank you for sticking with us. It was fun to do those two episodes this week. This one fully Canadian. Again, I think for the most part, companies that shouldn't be too disrupted by AI that we went over today. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:40 So make sure you, well, intact maybe a little bit, we'll have to see, but make sure you tune in, Monday, we'll have some more ideas of companies that shouldn't be disrupted by AI. Who knows, you never know, but are less likely to be disrupted. We appreciate all the support. And again, we'll be back on Monday. Hopefully you enjoy the, as you're listening to this, probably the Canada semi-final game.
Starting point is 00:36:04 Oh, yeah? It's going to be, I think, at either 11 a.m., around 11 or 3 p.m. I think we still need to see who's going to, who they're going to be playing again. The gold medal game, if they get there, is that like 5 a.m. on Sunday or something. Is it? Yeah. Your time, though.
Starting point is 00:36:19 Yeah. Your time? Okay. Well, I don't know. If it's Eastern. 7 a.m. my time. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:24 I hope it's not Eastern. Yeah. It's okay. My daughter's up anyways at that time. So it doesn't matter for me. That's true. Yeah. But anyways, hopefully enjoy that game.
Starting point is 00:36:33 It should be, the podcast should be out around the time the game is on. So you can listen to it after the game. There you go. So have a good one, everyone. Thanks for listening. The Canadian Investor podcast should not be construed as investment or financial advice. The host and guest featured may own securities or assets discussed on this podcast. Always do your own due diligence or consult with a financial
Starting point is 00:36:57 professional before making any financial or investment decisions.

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