Originally Posted by
Macjet
Back in December 2011 American Airlines was only worth $118 million. They could have been bought for change. Now they stand at roughly $26.5 billion.
Not exactly. You would have bought 118m of a bankrupt company. The creditors own the company and benevolently gave 3.5% equity stake to the stockholders. Quite rare. Usually the stock is wiped out. As it turned out it would have been profitable but so stupidly risky no one would've done it. And you would've only owed 3.5% of the new company.