Alan Joyce's Sales Act saddle

Perhaps I'm naive but 10% shareholding gives little chance of a management role or input into management in a well run listed Australian Company - 18% couldn't achieve a Board seat in another well run listed Australian Company last week. So on face value at least Etihad is only making a cash investment in the expectation of either dividends or capital appreciation or both.
If that is Etihad's plan there doesn't seem to be much of a mystery as to why they chose to invest in Virgin rather than Qantas.
It's hard not to wonder if the lack of dividends and embarrassing drop in share value of Qantas is the reason no serious foreign buyers are approaching the Federal government with requests to consider a change of policy about Qantas ownership. On the other hand Mr. Joyce has presided over (directed?) such a share price drop that only real 24 carat pessimists could see it going anywhere but up which would suggest the smart money should be on Qantas - if it can't be put on Beezlebub in the third that is.. (Alan Joyce's Sales Act saddle, July 19).

I'm having trouble understanding what is going on here, and what the agenda is (Alan Joyce's Sales Act saddle, July 19).
We have a foreign airline buying a small stake in Virgin, and Qantas very noisily wanting a foreign airline to buy a stake in it.
Why?
The 10 per cent stake Etihad has in Virgin doesn't give it control, possibly not even influence. In fact if it did have influence that would probably indicate a breach of the law in that one shareholder, Etihad, would be getting told more than other shareholders or the Market! In any case even an 18 per cent shareholding doesn't give a shareholder much influence in Fairfax these days.
So why is Alan Joyce so keen to get a foreign shareholder on the books at Qantas? Simplistic I might be, but on the above logic they could not be given any more information or have more influence over management than any other shareholder.
That suggests that any foreign airline investing in Virgin or Qantas must be doing it simply as an investment, hoping for dividends or capital appreciation. Qantas and dividends are far from close associates, and anyone confident of an imminent significant price rise must be reading a different newspaper to most of us. That might actually be the reason Mr. Joyce hasn't got any foreign airlines backing his calls for a change in government policy. It might also explain why a cashed up foreign airline sees Virgin as a worthwhile investment of some of it's money.

I think the last part of this article has hit the nail on the head. Qantas' problem is not just its cost base but its route structure and alliance with British Airways (Alan Joyce's Sales Act saddle, July 19). Europe is a key destination and having to access European cities via Heathrow is no longer putting a competitive product into the market place. If Qantas is going to resurrect its flailing international arm then it needs to have a base in the Middle base and offer product that the market wants, especially in the growing leisure sector of European River cruising. It is not just the product, but flying to London and then paying BA to fly back to Europe, while still offering a similar fare structure to Emirates must be hurting the viability of its European Routes.
The driver of the investment of both Etihad and Emirates is more likely to be about creating the UAE as the European airline hub and building the value of both Virgin and Qantas through strategic partnerships than it is about control or outright return on investment.

Alan Joyce should be sacked. He has absolutely no idea how to run a premium airline (Alan Joyce's Sales Act saddle, July 19). He is putting Jetstar directly in competition on international routes and leaves Qantas with the ageing fleet. Get rid of him while we still have Qantas.