Hey all - first straw! I hope this is okay.

Looks like it’s been a while since a straw was apportioned to WEB.

If this is in the wrong place, please let me know and I can move/repost it.

I recently listened to John Guscic, CEO of Webjet on a podcast and found myself quite impressed by his demeanour and passion for the (success of the) business. It gives a great insight into the management culture at WEB and quite a few new ideas and approaches that I really appreciated.

Now I get that a CEO should be an advocate for their company and that they’d be on the bullish side of things, but I appreciated Guscic’s approach to running a public company and his approach to interacting with and encouraging investors.

I’ve long held the view that while sentiment may change the price of a stock to a significant amount, the market cannot always be the final word on the actual value of the business.

I'm reminded of Peter Thornhill's comment in Motivated Money where he talks of a future where:

"The stock exchange only opens. on one day a year. On this day, we can all rush in, trade, then buss off for the next 12 months. We no longer see the prices of individual shares daily. However, house prices run across the top of your TV screen every day. Every finance journalist and talking heads now report daily on the likely movement in house prices, suburb by suburb... As a result, many people become so concerned about the short-term volatility of property prices that they sell their speculative properties and invest in SAFE shares..."

A little hyperbolic perhaps, but I do enjoy hypothesising about variables as an activity to strengthen my own opinion/s.

Guscic mentioned learning of a 25% reduction in the WEB share price on one day, when internally they posted a record day of sales. He asked a colleague “what does the market know about our business that we don’t know?” The answer was nothing. I find this kind of approach to a share price refreshing. If the company wins, the shareholders win.

There were a lot of other valuable insights in there from Guscic, from COVID obviously dominating a lot of the discussion as well as being one of the most shorted stocks on the ASX – this is one episode I’ve already re-listened to it a couple of times.

Anyway, just thought I’d jump in with my 2c – hope it helps!

The podcast was Equity Mates Investing – “CEO Series: John Guscic – Steering Webjet Through COVID”

Keen to hear anyone else’s thoughts on Guscic’s approach, but colour me impressed…