Spirit Airlines Rejects More Lucrative JetBlue Offer Over Regulatory Concerns
byDaniel McCarthy/
Spirit Airlines on Monday announced that it was rejecting the deal with JetBlue Airways because it does not believe that U.S. regulators will allow the deal to go through.
现在,精神将希望完成与Frontier的先前交易,这一协议的价值大大低于JetBlue的报价,但它认为有更好的机会清除监管障碍。
“We believe a combination of JetBlue and Spirit has a low probability of receiving antitrust clearance so long as JetBlue’s Northeast Alliance with American Airlines remains in existence,” Spirit said in a statement on Monday.
“Given the substantial completion risk, we believe JetBlue’s economic offer is illusory, and Spirit’s board has not found it necessary to consider it.”
JetBlue提出了一个“未经请求的报价”$33 per share all in cash, weeks after the original offer from Frontier’s parent company Frontier Group Holdings. JetBlue’s offer was reportedly, in total, around $3.6 billion to acquire Spirit, more than the $2.9 billion cash-and-stock merger deal that was on the table with Frontier.
尽管精神已经宣布已经同意了边境的“合并”,但JetBlue的提议给了公司第二个想法,然后Spirit宣布它将与JetBlue参与讨论。
Monday’s news ends those discussions and now sets Spirit, and Frontier, on their own mission to get regulatory approval, a task that could be difficult even though Spirit believes it more likely than if it had agreed to the JetBlue deal.
Somelawmakers in the U.S. have already expressed concerns, and others have zeroed in on competition in the airline space, including a federal suit from the Justice Department from last year that targeted an alliance between American and JetBlue.