boxer6

Please read this article.

I'm not going to highlight the obvious sentence in the article but know and accept that it was the reality...the numbers are the numbers.

The mergers were GOING to happen. The whole decade was spent preparing and posturing. It doesn't happen in a vacuum.

Some need to come to the realization that things could have turned out worse for them....much worse. Let's accept that and move on, shall we?




M&A Flashback: United Continental Cleared For Takeoff
This story appears in the May 4, 2015 issue of Forbes.


Airline stocks have capitalized on lower oil prices to extend their best rally in years, but the real seeds of their turnaround were planted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Continental and United first discussed joining forces in May of that year before the collapsing U.S. economy put those plans on hold. Talks revived in 2009 once the markets found their footing; the marriage was consummated in 2010, forming United Continental Holdings UAL -0.81%.

The tie-up marked the midpoint of the consolidations that shrunk the number of old-line carriers by half, following the 2008 merger of Delta Air Lines DAL -1.3% and Northwest and ahead of the 2013 hookup of American and US Airways as the new American Airlines Group AAL +0.33%.



Safety In Numbers

Continental and United had both been through bankruptcy prior to their merger, but at the time of the transaction Continental was in danger of slipping into Chapter 11 anew, carrying $6.3 billion in debt against just $590 million in equity.

Dealmaker-In-Chief

The night before they announced the planned merger, the two parties called President Obama to discuss it. Considering the Justice Department would later mount a stiff challenge to the American/US Airways union, the courtesy call seems even smarter in retrospect.

Bullet The Blue Sky

Bankers advising the merger used musical code names for the $3 billion all-stock merger. Continental was “Coldplay,” United “U2” and the deal itself “ Joshua Tree,” after Bono & Co.’s smash 1987 album.

Bumpy Ride

Executives were all smiles when the deal finally closed in October 2010, but the combined giant has encountered some rough weather since, regularly ranking near the bottom of annual measures of U.S. airlines’ performance.

APC225

Speaking of a decade, here's one from 2005. The last two paragraphs are telling. Unfortunately, by 2010, Continental leadership was no longer competent, but investors didn't know it.

Buyers are eyeing UAL
Outside equity players likely to enter picture

By Julie Johnsson and Paul Merrion
June 13, 2005

Rumblings of a takeover bid for United Airlines grew louder amid the first big public rift between management of the troubled carrier and a group representing its largest unsecured creditors.

In a terse, two-sentence Bankruptcy Court filing late last week, United's creditors committee clearly indicated that there are outside investors interested in taking a run at the Elk Grove Township-based carrier.

Separately, a top official with a key United union confirmed late Friday that two investor groups had notified him in recent weeks that they are preparing competing reorganization plans for the airline.

And a source close to the creditors committee says "there are very, very qualified people out there waiting for an opportunity" to bid on the company.

Industry sources and people close to United say Dallas-based investment firm Texas Pacific Group and investor consortiums led by former United CEO Gerald Greenwald and ex-Continental Airlines chief Gordon Bethune are among those circling the carrier.

A spokesman for Texas Pacific Group declines comment; the other parties could not be reached for comment Friday. A United spokeswoman says, "We're not aware of any competing plans being put forward."

Until now, neither United nor its creditors has acknowledged active interest by outside buyers. That changed last week when creditors responded to United management's latest request to extend its exclusive right to file a reorganization plan. Exclusivity has insulated CEO Glenn Tilton's team from outside bidders, who might bring in new management.

While creditors did not object to an extension through Sept. 1, they pointedly made an issue out of United management's routine assertion that further delay won't harm creditors because no other parties have expressed interest in submitting a reorganization plan.

"The committee does not acquiesce in or endorse any implication in the debtor's motion that there are not qualified parties interested in submitting alternate plans of reorganization," the committee says in its filing.

Meanwhile, a top union official confirms that outside investors' interest is intensifying. "I'm aware of two (outside groups), but there might be more," says R. Thomas Buffenbarger, international president of the International Assn. of Machinists, United's largest union and a member of its creditors committee. He declines to say which investors have contacted the union.

'THREAT AND MESSAGE'

With the filing, the creditors committee — which must back any reorganization plan — sends a strong message to the court and potential bidders that it doesn't consider Mr. Tilton to be the only party plotting a strategy capable of pulling the world's second-largest airline out of bankruptcy, observers say.

"It's both a threat and a message," says turnaround expert William Brandt, CEO of Chicago's Development Specialists Inc.

With an end in sight to United's bankruptcy sojourn, it is attracting interest from investors keen on controlling United and its rich assets. Despite the daunting economics of its industry, investors believe they can better position United for the long haul than Mr. Tilton.

Mr. Tilton is bent on exiting bankruptcy solely through debt financing, a strategy some say will leave the carrier dangerously leveraged and with inadequate capital to keep pace with competitors.

Some question Mr. Tilton's ability to chart a profitable flight plan for United, despite successfully winning cost concessions from the airline's unions. An outside group, including a proven airline executive like Mr. Bethune, who revived Continental, might convince creditors it has a better strategy for United.

Lerxst

And here's one from 10 months before the merger. We both sucked, and we were both being actively managed to this end state for YEARS prior to the announcement just like Boxer6 said. No one has any idea how each individual Legacy would have fared absent this merger, and postulating wildly divergent outcomes is a futile effort.


New York Post

BUSINESS
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UNITED, THEY FALL (INTO DEBT)
By Josh KosmanJune 30, 2009 | 6:27am
United Airlines is having its own version of the trip from hell.
The airline, reeling from a decline in customers and running short on cash, is paying a steep 17 percent interest on $175 million in debt it issued, leading analysts to bet the company is just a few steps from the grave.
Indeed, that interest rate represents a full 6 percentage points above where rival airlines have paid in recent debt raisings, and is more than double what it paid nine years ago when it sold $186.4 million in debt at a yield of slightly more than 8 percent, according to Bloomberg data.
United Airlines parent UAL was planning to sell the debt at a 12.75 percent interest, but was forced to sweeten things due to both a lack of investor interest and management desperation, said analyst Roger King of CreditSights.
Others have noted that the steep interest rate reflects a lack of desirable assets to use as collateral.
UAL is considered the laggard among the big airlines, even as the airlines’ overall passenger demand is off 10 percent compared with last summer. Also, the company has just $2.5 billion of cash on hand, compared with Delta, which has $7 billion.
To be sure, it’s a difficult time for all airlines. However, UAL has some unique challenges.
When it was in bankruptcy from 2002 through 2006, it focused on attracting premium customers — a move that now leaves it vulnerable given there’s less business travel and more consumers are favoring price over luxury when it comes to travel.
Making matters worse, UAL may have near-term liquidity issues, and could begin to get squeezed by credit-card companies that fret they’d have to refund customers who bought tickets out of their own pockets if UAL collapses. King said UAL is now in talks with American Express about reaching a new arrangement to address this threat.
Last week, the airline announced it would lay off another 600 flight attendants in the fall. King said the company has basically already made about all the cuts it can.

Birddog

Well at least the C-171 resolution dredges up old wounds and bickering. It has that going for it.

Kilder

Sure...but your memory fails to remember that the longevity attributed to CAL pilots was the one decided by UAL merger committee and lawyers using the erronous Zeus databas, that CAL management didn't even maintain current...also UAL added over 1000 unemployed pilots to their list thus enlarging their pilot count compared to CAL pilots on a list were all pilots would not get equal benefit of an inflated pilot count...

pilot64golfer

None of which is true.

Kilder

Oh man....I forgot you were here and that you're the "all-knowing truth bearer" oracle....you have no need for explanation just saying "None is true" will suffice...

rp2pilot

Why not just read the Seniority List award from the three neutral Arbitrators? They had much to say about the folly of L-CAL's proposal. Nobody likes a sore loser.

CousinEddie

If the Zeus data does not reflect the correct date that you began your company and FAA required basic indoc training with CAL, then you should be able to prove it in court. How's that case going? Was the date in your case (CAL, not CALEX) inaccurate?

pilot64golfer

Plus they omitted the time pilots spent on furlough. They added over 4,000 years of longevity to the aggregate pilot group and then threw a hissy fit when the UAL MC would not just accept the dates and longevities they fraudulently provided.