Originally Posted by rickair7777

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)..