Important to keep in mind

Subscribe
5  11  12  13  14  15 
Page 15 of 15
Go to
Quote: Please keep in mind that mergers are not done in a vacuum. Two management teams don't one day decide to have a meeting and announce 30 days later a merger is agreed upon.

Let's say, for example, that UAL wanted to merger with CAL back in the early 2000's (that is probably when informal talks started) and by some miracle DOT and DOJ approved the merger but with stipulations. The merger happens and integration is done but the stipulations are that the new company needs to divest certain amount of capacity in certain markets for anti-trust issues. It is not unusual when capacity shrinks after a merger. Would you agree that is a fair statement?

So, the company complies and lo and behold furloughs are going to be needed. The list is already integrated so they start from the bottom and obviously its from both groups.

I think its obvious where I'm going with this. I also think that to discount any possibility that two management teams would NOT AT ALL try to do as much of the prep work prior to submitting their proposal to DOT and DOJ is being obtuse. In fact it would be naive to think that these type of discussions did not happen. Put yourself in their shoes for 30 seconds and ask yourself why you would NOT want to prep this deal as much as you can beforehand.

Neither of these two companies had the cash for an outright purchase so a merger of equals had to be the answer and that can only be done when market caps/stock price are pretty similar and the swap ratio is one where both parties agree.

I think all can agree that nobody here on this board was privy to conversations between the principles on this merger. That being said, what I offer above is certainly in the realm of possibility and logic and can not simply be dismissed outright.
Reasonable people may be able to subscribe to this theory .... And may in fact put a "value" on said equity in relation to an integration. By the same standard of reasonableness, one would have to account for the prep work done on the CAL side for the merger, specifically the limited growth of wide bodies and early retirement of 737s.
This thread is still open? Really?
Quote: This thread is still open? Really?
Why did the spouse have two black eyes? They didn't listen the first time.
Quote: Reasonable people may be able to subscribe to this theory .... And may in fact put a "value" on said equity in relation to an integration. By the same standard of reasonableness, one would have to account for the prep work done on the CAL side for the merger, specifically the limited growth of wide bodies and early retirement of 737s.
Possible... Like I said, nobody was privy to the executive conversations. However, that being said, Tilton was an exec hired to do two things. Steer a company through BK (he already had this on his resume) and promote industry (specifically UAL) consolidation. While casual talks between CAL and UAL may have occurred 8-10 years ago I think, and I think CAL guys would agree, that Bethune/Kellner were not fans merging with anyone. Likely, they pursued their strategy moving forward as a stand alone carrier until the DAL/NWA merger changed the industry dynamic. Kellner looked like he STILL didn't want to accept the fact of the industry bit the CAL BOD's did. It was commonly thought that the carrier without a partner would slowly die on the vine. Very reasonable as the corporate accounts were the majority revenue stream and DAL's new network would extremely hard to compete with.

At the end of the day, I don't believe Bethune and Kellner did any positioning of CAL for a future merger. I am not stating this as fact, of course, but merely trying to reasonably connect the dots as observed.
Had industry consolidation not started, I think Kellner was doing a great job steering the ship for CAL.
5  11  12  13  14  15 
Page 15 of 15
Go to