If you have been following financial media, you might have come across the failure of a travel company called Thomas Cook. 600,000 British citizens were left stranded overseas, tens of thousands of employees left hanging, and perhaps hundreds of hotels, resorts, airports were left holding the bag for Thomas Cook shareholders and managers. Before Monday 23rd September 2019, I didn’t even know who or what Thomas Cook was. After Monday, it is easy to ride on the wave of media bashing and predict the past. Let’s try to enjoy some good-old-hindsight-investing and rationalize what happened. The Case First and foremost, a company must be profitable before I invest in it. I don’t like to participate in speculative bets unless the reward-risk payoff is huge. Let’s say I could time travel back to 2014. A quick look at the operating performance of Thomas Cook gives it an acceptable grade. ...