Warren Buffett, in the 2007 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter :
The worst sort of business is one that grows rapidly, requires significant capital to engender the growth, and then earns little or no money. Think airlines. Here a durable competitive advantage has proven elusive ever since the days of the Wright Brothers. Indeed, if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.
as per reports “In the last decade, Jet lost three times of what it earned as profit—a total net loss of Rs 12,457 crore against a profit of Rs 4,122 crore.”
In a industry such as this, I failed to understand why would tata is making so many investments ?
Possibilities:
Multiple bets strategy:
In business literature, there is a strategy where you corner larger chunk of market by having competing product, but I am not sure how aviation as a sector is suitable
Historic connection
Before nationalization, air india was tata company, in fact tata’s started aviation in India, but is this connect justify entry into loss making sector
Opportunities
India’s aviation is growing very fast and it could open up huge challenges.
For multiple bets strategy, tata’s already have two bets. Three bets will be over kill.
As far as historic connection is concern, they are already part of same segment again.
As per my understanding, this could be big value destroyer for tata’s, they have lost big time in telecom, not sure why they want to chase another mirage.
Note: I am not criticizing tata move, I am trying to understand the rational. Being a business graduate,I am considering this as a case study. Your views are welcome.