They’ve got long memories down at Virgin Australia. On April 4, as the world reeled from US President Donald Trump’s infamous “liberation day” tariff announcements, your columnist suggested on the Chanticleer podcast that if private equity firm Bain Capital and its advisers managed to get the airline’s IPO away then they deserved to have statues built on Martin Place and Collins Street.

As Virgin hit the ASX boards on Tuesday in an impressive debut – the stock leapt almost 10 per cent upon opening, and closed up 11.4 per cent above its $2.90 issue price at $3.23 – chief executive Dave Emerson couldn’t help noting there were “some who said it couldn’t have happened. We won’t mention who those might be.”