Bombardier ($BBD.B) Long: While You Were Fighting Over a Plastic Pocket Watch

Article #250: Avoid the Crowd - Business Jet Cycle, CDPQ Conviction & a New Position

May 18, 2026

∙ Paid

“Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.” - Ralph Charell

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have probably heard about the large crowds (and in some cases riots) that came about in major cities globally over the Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop collaboration. I don’t want to give too much time to this today since I have two new names (one long idea and one short) that I think are more interesting and you can read about the collaboration here. Since a number of people have asked, however, here is my quick view on it.

Collaborations like this are not new for Swatch. In the past they have done a successful Swatch X OMEGA Speedmaster collection which did very well. What is different this time is that unlike OMEGA, AP is not part of Swatch Group. A few things are at play here, most importantly, AP failed to secure exclusive trademark protection for the Royal Oak octagonal bezel design in Japan (2024) and the US (2025).

Courts ruled the shape was not distinct enough to legally monopolize. Instead of fighting every copycat, AP licensed its famed design to Swatch to flood the market with accessible, official versions before cheaper fakes could take over. The collaboration ensures that even entry-level consumers associate the octagonal design directly with AP and Swatch, rather than generic copycats.

What AP didn’t predict was that the people lining up and fighting to buy the Royal Pop are people who are 99.9% of the time never going to be able to afford and AP and in general just wanted to flip it. The Royal Pop retails for around €400 and is being resold online for as much as €5,000. Essentially a bunch of people camped out to flip the watch and are not going to keep it. Swatch is not placing a hard production cap on the number of Royal Pop pocket watches it manufactures so you’re an idiot if you waited outside for it. The problem for AP and Swatch for that matter is that this is the type of shit that was going on when boutiques opened their doors to sell this thing.

My view here is that this is like when people say, “Oh New York City elected a democratic socialist into office therefore every wealthy person is going to move to Florida.” Wealthy people are still going to buy things they want like an AP Royal Oak, just as wealthy people aren’t going to move to Florida because New York City is still New York City and Florida is Florida.

I’m still going to wear an AP Royal Oak Chronograph because at the end of the day it’s not a plastic pocket watch. I do however think that if anything, this is a problem for Swatch due to the optics around who was causing problems and all the social media attention it received.

Nine-panel grid of social media screenshots and news footage documenting the chaotic global launch of the Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop collaboration. Top row shows crowds gathered outside boutiques, a young man in a trench coat captioned "For Swatch x AP Collab," and a dense crowd inside a London-themed Swatch store. Middle row shows hundreds of people lined up outside a storefront at dawn, security personnel on a mezzanine overlooking a packed lower level, and a caption reading "Swatch X Ap Line Valley Fair 6 AM" with crying and broken-heart emojis over a sea of shoppers. Bottom row shows a news broadcast headline "Swatch x AP launch shut down after chaotic crowds outside Houston store," a meme of a pregnant woman holding a glass of wine captioned "No it doesn't affect my baby" with the Swatch and AP storefront in the background and "30 years later" overlaid, and a final image of a raucous crowd with raised arms outside a Swatch boutique. The collage captures the unruly scenes, flipper culture, and viral social media response surrounding the Royal Pop pocket watch release in May 2026. — Source: Instagram

Nine-panel grid of social media screenshots and news footage capturing the chaotic global rollout of the Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop collaboration. Top row shows uniformed police officers stationed outside a Swatch boutique with the caption "It is the last day of the," a massive crowd packed shoulder-to-shoulder on a Manhattan street in front of "The Lion King" Broadway theatre near Times Square, and a blurred storefront image suggesting motion or commotion. Middle row shows a confrontation between police and individuals on a city street captioned "Losing their freedom," another angle of the dense Times Square crowd in front of the Lion King theatre with people raising phones to film, and an overhead view of a packed crowd outside a Swatch storefront. Bottom row shows a quiet shot of someone walking past a closed boutique captioned "Things getting crazy at the AP X Swatch lineup in Montreal" with a Canadian flag emoji, police officers detaining or speaking with individuals inside a building with the caption "in Miami shutdown," and a dark cinematic still featuring a dimly lit restaurant or bar interior with the text "It's from this new Swatch collab called the Royal Po—" overlaid. The collage documents the global scale of the disruption — from New York and Montreal to Miami — and the police response that accompanied multiple store closures during the Royal Pop launch. — Source: Instagram

Three-panel meme grid satirizing the Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop collaboration. Left panel shows a Mad Men-style still of Don Draper (Jon Hamm) standing next to an advertising easel displaying four colorful plastic watches with the caption "APs but for people living off welfare," mocking the entry-level pricing and demographic of the Royal Pop versus a traditional Audemars Piguet customer. Middle panel shows a dimly lit cinematic still of a restaurant or bar interior with overlaid text reading "yours. It's from this new Swatch collab called the Royal Po—," referencing dialogue cut off mid-sentence about the collaboration. Right panel shows a still from "The Great" television series featuring a man in a red and gold robe with a sack on his head, captioned "and seeing a line of people camped out around the block — I'm sorry, is this some sort of peasant joke that I'm too rich to understand?" The collage captures the satirical social media response to the Royal Pop launch, particularly the disconnect between the collaboration's flipper-driven customer base and Audemars Piguet's traditional ultra-wealthy clientele. — Source: Instagram

On the topic of crowded places, one of my favorite luxuries is the ability to avoid crowds, lines and the general fuckery of traveling anywhere. Notably OpenAI recently allowed current and former employees to sell up to $30 million in shares, with more than 600 making $6.6 billion collectively (the average payout was $11 million per person). In fact, in the US there are about 430,000 households with a net worth of $30 million or more and about 74,000 worth $100 million or more. This is going to continue to grow with the anticipated IPOs of companies like Anthropic, SpaceX and others. In fact, the ultra-wealthy population has grown seven times faster than the adult population in the past twenty years.

Keeping these numbers in mind what is one of the first things people start to do when they achieve this level of wealth? I’ll give you a hint; it’s not purchasing a Louis Vuitton bag. They start traveling by private jet.

Private jet travel has recorded a 34% increase in global flights compared to pre-COVID levels. This has been driven by a massive influx (see above) of a growing population of ultra-high-net-worth individuals. Another important statistic is that fractional fleet programs like NetJets, FlexJet etc. have expanded by over 60% since 2019. During the 2025 Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia approximately 3,900 private flights flew into the Augusta area. 2026 eclipsed that.

It’s extremely difficult to make the argument against flying private if you have the means to do so. You can travel on your schedule, nobody in the security line who acts like they haven’t been to an airport before, you don’t have to compete with a hippie backpacker who hasn’t showered in a week who is throwing all of their shit in an overhead bin for space and most importantly, you actually don’t have to deal with people at all. You simply arrive, get on the plane and go.

Looking at the global business jet market, it is projected to grow from roughly $48.1 billion in 2025 to $72.3 billion by 2034, a CAGR of 4.56%. North America dominates with ~44.6% share, anchored by the largest installed fleet and the bulk of OEM activity.

Large-cabin aircraft lead the mix at ~39.8% share in 2026, with buyers prioritizing range, space, and upgraded safety systems. Operators (charter and fractional platforms) account for ~76.9% of demand in 2026, benefiting from scale economics. Propulsion is the largest system spend at ~34.1% and new deliveries edge pre-owned at ~55.9%.

Additionally, if you want to break the rest of the world down regionally:

Europe ~$10.2B (21.3% share), led by the UK and Germany with NetJets Europe and VistaJet anchoring charter activity.
Asia Pacific ~$8.0B (16.6%), driven by Japan, China, and India.
Middle East & Africa ~$5.3B (11%), powered by Gulf HNWIs and fractional programs.

So, who stands to benefit? The competitive landscape is concentrated at the top with Bombardier holding its position as the world’s second-largest business jet manufacturer by value in 2025, delivering 157 aircraft worth $7.94 billion versus Gulfstream’s 158 deliveries worth $10.01 billion. Gulfstream pulling ahead by a single airframe but more than $2 billion in billings as its ultra-long-range G700 and G800 hit stride.

Gulfstream, Bombardier, Textron, and Embraer together hold more than 60% of US deliveries, with Dassault rounding out the top five. Bombardier’s franchise sits at the top of the cabin pyramid via the Global 7500 and the new Global 8000 (the fastest civilian jet since Concorde). This is backed by a June 2025 firm order for 50 Challenger and Global aircraft worth $1.7 billion and deliveries starting in 2027, it remains the largest OEM by installed fleet size in Asia-Pacific.

I have recently initiated a long position in Bombardier. Bombardier has two classes of common stock that trade in Canada. Class A shares which are essentially all held by the founding Bombardier-Beaudoin family and Class B shares which institutions and retail generally trade.

Aside from the tailwinds (no pun intended) that the industry is experiencing, I like the fact that Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) has a material position and has owned this name for quite some time. For context, CDPQ is Canada’s second-largest pension fund, managing over $500 billion in assets. They manage the public pension and insurance plans for millions of Quebecers and operate a massive international portfolio. In my opinion they are one of the smartest pension funds out there.

What I will add here is that this position is not huge. Just over a year ago there was a story out there that the turnaround was mispriced (I should have gotten involved then) and that has essentially played out. I do like the fact that the Bombardier’s book-to-bill of 3.6x signals that demand is well ahead of supply and frankly I don’t think

Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Intern Pierre.

Or purchase a paid subscription.