Qantas shares could slide 30pc after boom, Angus Aitken warns clients

afr.com:

Qantas shares could fall 30 per cent as the airline faces hefty spending on aircraft and its once-loved brand is tarnished by poor customer service, high-profile stockbroker Angus Aitken has warned his clients.

Urging them to sell, Mr Aitken wrote in a note to clients that investment analysts were too bullish on Qantas’ future performance, adding that it was “a great time to take profits” and its market capitalisation was “punchy”.

Zucchini fritters aside, Angus Aitken has a long list of reasons to sell Qantas. Angus Aitken

“How can every analyst love a stock that underneath it all has many cyclical elements? You should worry about a broker research panel that looks like this with no sells,” Mr Aitken wrote, adding that earnings could “easily go back to” $3 billion from around $4.5 billion for the last financial year.

“This sad-looking packet of vegan zucchini fritters served to me on a flight to [Queensland] to me sums up Qantas as a business and a brand,” he wrote, attaching a photograph of a meal he had been served.

“You pay a sh**load of money for what should be a premium product and the service is Z grade for those high airfares. I reckon even the hosties were embarrassed to serve this rubbish to the customers.”

In particular, Mr Aitken was scathing of Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce’s decision to ban The Australian Financial Review from its lounges, writing managers “who don’t take criticism well always worry me”.

“Part of getting paid… as a CEO in a public company is copping some negative heat, if you don’t like it, then don’t accept tens of millions in salary and bonus and go drive an Uber,” he said, adding that many investors will look back after Mr Joyce departs and wonder why they did not sell.

In May,