A Montreal-based transportation company has managed to keep investors optimistic about its future even though it has suffered significant financial losses and production delays.

Bombardier Inc. posted a loss of more than $230 million US for their 2012 fiscal year.

The company decided to “restructure” in “an effort to improve competitiveness and cost structure” in 2012, which involved more than 1,200 jobs cut and the closure of a plant in Germany. This restructuring cost the company $119 million.

Below is an annotated Bombardier’s Annual Report for 2012. Click “Notes” at the top to scroll through the annotations.

As it turns out, 2012’s financial setbacks were only the beginning for the multinational company.

According to a report by JP Morgan analyst Joseph Nadol, the layoffs aren’t directly related to the delay of the C-Series, but “the cash requirements for that program are causing management to seek to preserve cash elsewhere.”

Bombardier also saw the the loss of another senior vice-president back in early December. The company did not comment on whether the former employee left on his own accord or whether his departure was linked to diminishing orders for the C-Series.

The additional job losses and product delays don’t bode well for the company’s future considering how much they lost last year. However, Bombardier’s stock has been doing well recently.

In fact, according an online report by Nasdaq, Bombardier was the most active share on the Toronto Stock Exchange this past week, with its stock climbing nearly 3 per cent. 

Eric Kirzner, a professor of finance at the University of Toronto, said that for a low-priced stock like Bombardier’s, the move in price was “not insignificant.”

He says the company, by maintaining this price level in such a weak market, is “bucking the trend.”

However, Kirzner also said this could likely have more to do with the optimism of Bombardier’s analysts.

“Stocks don’t normally react to news unless the news is totally unexpected,” he said. “Stocks tend to anticipate events long in advance.”

“The events that have taken place at Bombardier in the last year have either been not that important or the events themselves were pretty well-anticipated.”

Kirzner said he looked into Bombardier a short while ago and found that there is either no news that is surprising or things turned out to be not quite as bad as expected for investors.

“It’s the anticipation, not the event itself that’s the key to share prices.”

Kirzner’s assessment appears to be correct.

Noah Poponak, an analyst with Goldman Sachs, follows Bombardier closely.  He identified a decline in the demand for regional and business jets as well as the large amount of cash usage coming from the development of the C-Series as key risks for investing in the company.

He also noted Bombardier received 81 orders in 2013 compared to 138 the previous year, a 40 per cent drop.

In spite of this, Poponak confirmed there was “no change” to his estimates for the company in the coming years.

His own report predicts an eight per cent growth in the company’s net income for 2014 and additional 13 per cent rise for 2015.

The company was just this week declared the 24th most sustainable companies in the world by investment advisory company Corporate Knights Inc.

It looks like regardless of their financial difficulties in the present, investors and analysts believe things are still looking up for the company’s future.