A New Twist to the Spirit Airlines Merger Saga

There’s yet another new twist to the ongoing drama involving the Spirit Airlines-Frontier Airlines-JetBlue Airways merger saga.

If you’ll recall, Spirit in February agreed to merge with Frontier. JetBlue came calling in April with a late, but better, offer to acquire Spirit, which ultimately rejected the deal. Spurned, JetBlue announced a hostile takeover of Spirit last month.

Spirit Airlines CEO Ted Christie said he believes shareholders will still reject JetBlue’s takeover bid in a vote scheduled for June 10. Spirit is concerned that the Department of Justice will not approve a merger with JetBlue.

Not so fast.

On Tuesday, TravelPulse’s fellow Northstar publication, Travel Weekly, reported a new development. International Shareholder Services (ISS), a proxy firm that companies hire to assess potential mergers and acquisitions, issued a report advising Spirit stockholders to reject the Frontier offer, noting that JetBlue offers more financial gain.

“On balance, a potential agreement with JetBlue would appear to offer shareholders superior optionality, allowing those concerned with the turbulence ahead to exit at a significant premium, while allowing those with a more optimistic outlook to reinvest the premium consideration,” ISS wrote in the report, according to Travel Weekly.

It appears the proxy firm was actually hired by JetBlue to assess the deal. JetBlue issued a release on the findings, although ISS declined to provide the full report to Travel Weekly.

Neither Spirit nor Frontier has commented as of Wednesday morning.

The ISS report did take into consideration Spirit’s concerns that a deal with JetBlue would not receive the DOJ’s blessing.

“Spirit’s view that the Frontier proposal may have a smoother glide path towards achieving regulatory approval appears reasonable, but its assertion that the JetBlue proposal has zero chance of approval appears far less so,” the proxy advisory firm said.