JetBlue goes hostile in its takeover bid for Spirit Airlines.
JetBlue said Monday that it was beginning a tender offer to acquire Spirit Airlines after Spirit’s board rejected an earlier proposal, sticking with its plan to merge with Frontier Airlines instead. JetBlue said it was offering $30 a share to buy all of Spirit’s outstanding stock directly from shareholders, slightly less than it had originally offered to Spirit. That would set the purchase price at more than $3.2b. Spirit’s stock opened at $18.33 per share on Monday following the announcement of JetBlue’s tender offer, an 8% increase from its closing price on Friday. Spirit last week scheduled a vote on the merger with Frontier for June 10 and has urged shareholders to approve the deal. JetBlue said it was willing to increase its offer to $33 a share, the price it initially offered last month, if Spirit cooperated and shared the same information about its business with it as it had with Frontier. JetBlue said it had filed a “vote no” proxy statement calling for Spirit shareholders to reject the Frontier merger. JetBlue said that its all-cash offer was currently worth 60 percent more than Frontier’s cash-and-stock proposal. Frontier’s share price has fallen by about a third since it announced its merger with Spirit, reducing the value of its bid. Two weeks ago, Spirit’s chairman, Mac Gardner, said that “after a thorough review and extensive dialogue with JetBlue,” his company stood by its plan to merge with Frontier. He argued that it reflected the best interests of long-term shareholders, and that Spirit had concluded regulators were unlikely to approve the JetBlue deal. Story has more. <br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2022-05-17/unaligned/jetblue-goes-hostile-in-its-takeover-bid-for-spirit-airlines
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/logo.png
JetBlue goes hostile in its takeover bid for Spirit Airlines.
JetBlue said Monday that it was beginning a tender offer to acquire Spirit Airlines after Spirit’s board rejected an earlier proposal, sticking with its plan to merge with Frontier Airlines instead. JetBlue said it was offering $30 a share to buy all of Spirit’s outstanding stock directly from shareholders, slightly less than it had originally offered to Spirit. That would set the purchase price at more than $3.2b. Spirit’s stock opened at $18.33 per share on Monday following the announcement of JetBlue’s tender offer, an 8% increase from its closing price on Friday. Spirit last week scheduled a vote on the merger with Frontier for June 10 and has urged shareholders to approve the deal. JetBlue said it was willing to increase its offer to $33 a share, the price it initially offered last month, if Spirit cooperated and shared the same information about its business with it as it had with Frontier. JetBlue said it had filed a “vote no” proxy statement calling for Spirit shareholders to reject the Frontier merger. JetBlue said that its all-cash offer was currently worth 60 percent more than Frontier’s cash-and-stock proposal. Frontier’s share price has fallen by about a third since it announced its merger with Spirit, reducing the value of its bid. Two weeks ago, Spirit’s chairman, Mac Gardner, said that “after a thorough review and extensive dialogue with JetBlue,” his company stood by its plan to merge with Frontier. He argued that it reflected the best interests of long-term shareholders, and that Spirit had concluded regulators were unlikely to approve the JetBlue deal. Story has more. <br/>
