The city of Montreal has a service where you can rent a bike for a while, be it an hour or a day. The question is should we keep it or let it blow away with the wind. Why? Because it is costing Montreal money to subsidies this service. Here is how the argument works outs. By any legal sense, accounting sense and or professional sense Bixi made a profit. This is certified by the General Accountant of Montreal under the rules of accounting in both Provincial and Federal law covering these matters. However, having said that, we then enter the details of the financial statement and see where some doubt comes from. In it, we see the city has paid some 3 million dollars to the company, counted as part of its revenue, as a donation, thus not repayable. This is clearly greater than the profit made some 1 million dollars rounded up. So therefore Bixi, without such aid did not make a profit. Please note, we have shifted the question from being one of profitability to that of long term sustainability without such assistance or taking thus public cooperation, not for profit and turning the rules of a private For Profit Company which does not get help from the government. This however is an unfair turn. The part of Bixi, the international arm of it, that is paid royalties from places like New York and London for the Bixi idea, is making vast profits. The city had to sell this part of the program as it is incompatible with the city’s charter to make a private sector profit or enter into a business arrangement. So if the two, which were once the same company, were again merged, there would be no need for the city to give a subsidy to Bixi, as it would be making a profit on its own terms, without subsidies. So there you go, half full or half empty. I leave the question to you. However, I repeat by all that is considered to be the legal standard of accounting principles, Bixi did indeed make a profit and is making a profit as certified by the Auditor General of Montreal, and would be the acceptable as a professional opinion in any Canadian court of law where their opinion asked. Changing the nature of the question then allows for the answer to be that Bixi did not make a profit. However, if we allow the change to our primary question, we must return the public and the private together, in order to make the comparison. For it is only because of the nature of the city, not allowed to own the For Profit part of Bixi that the profitable side was sold.  In other words, you cannot have it both ways; either we treat Bixi as a fully private or fully public corporation.  In the fully public side, we see now, it is profitable by the rules set up by accounting. If we turn to the private side, we cannot fight with one arm ties behind our back, or sold off to ensure that Bixi remains true to being a public trust and not making a private profit. So rejoining the two parts seem to be only fair to see if they make a profit and they do. So in either case, when regarding this question, we must look to both sides of the issue and see what is to be seen. Not merely make an assertion of no viability on financial grounds, when the ground work and history is completely ignored.