Spirit Airlines said Tuesday its board will settle on contending offers from JetBlue Airways and Frontier Airlines before a shareholder meeting toward the month’s end as the fight for the discount carrier warms up.
“The Board expects to bring the process to a conclusion and provide an update to stockholders” ahead of its June 30 meeting, Spirit CEO Ted Christie said in a statement.
Spirit delayed a meeting where shareholders would decide on the current Frontier deal from June 10 until June 30 to review the offers.
Spirit’s shares rose over 3.4% on Tuesday, while shares of Frontier added 1.5% and JetBlue’s rose 0.5% after Spirit’s statement.
JetBlue made an improved proposal to purchase Spirit on June 6, raising an opposite break-up fee to $350 million should regulators not support the acquisition. Spirit has had a consolidation concurrence with individual ultra-low-cost airline carrier Frontier since February and is as yet limited by the details of that cash-and-stock deal, it said.
Frontier offered a $250 million reverse break-up fee. JetBlue’s incorporated prepaying $1.50 a share from the break-up fee to shareholders to raise its proposal from $30 an offer to $31.50 in cash.
“As part of this process, Frontier and JetBlue are being given access to the same due diligence information, on the same terms,” Christie said.
JetBlue recently blamed Spirit for not allowing equivalent access to its data after Spirit more than once repelled JetBlue’s buyout offers.
