Originally Posted by
beancounter
If there was some way Alaska could acquire American and their management call the shots yeah, but I don't think ALK has the money. Even though American's market cap is a joke the real value of the assets (even with high debt) is close to that of Delta's and United's.
But you don't actually have to pay for the value of the assets... you only have to pay for 50% of the shares plus one share.
Worth noting that the market caps reflects not only debt and assets, but also perceived profit potential. So you could own a lot of assets with low debt, but still have low market cap if the market thinks you don't know how to make money with your expensive toys. Especially with a large airline where you can't just auction off the parts for cash... .gov will have an opinion on the matter if you try to part out a too-big-to-fail airline in 2026.
In reality you won't get a company for exactly 50% of the market cap though... in order to actually get enough shareholders to sell all at once you need to offer an acquisition premium which is sometimes north of 50% of market price. Possible exception if one entity holds 51% and wants to get rid of it (not likely for airlines)..