JetBlue has launched its hostile takeover of Spirit Airlines following the rejection of its acquisition bid. The fight now goes directly to the shareholders, as Jetblue tries to convince them to take the offer of $30 per share. This comes after Spirit had tried to finalize a deal with Frontier Airlines. Al Root, a senior writer at Barron's, joins Cheddar to explain.

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JetBlue Hostile Takeover Attempt of Spirit Airlines Sets Up 'High Drama'

JetBlue is launching a hostile takeover bid for Spirit Airlines. Just about a month after the company's last two offers for the budget airline were rejected, JetBlue is offering Spirit investors $30 for each share. They own nearly double where the stock trades at currently. Most recently, the Spirit board rejected JetBlue's offer of $33 a share in favor of a previous deal. The company agreed to with Frontier Airlines for more on this. Let's go ahead and bring in Al Root, senior writer at Barons. Al can you break down exactly what this hostile takeover could look like? Um, well, you know, you know what, you broke it down pretty well. Right. So they haven't been for 30 bucks, so there's a vote on June 10 for the existing merger. Right? So spirit and frontier have agreed to merge, that's a stock deal or stock and cash deal. So the two share prices are linked. And then JetBlue in April came over the top said, we'd like to buy it. Got rejected, said we'll buy it for 33 got rejected. And now they're trying to take their $30 deal directly to shareholders. Um, you know the way the stock is trading, it really isn't trading like JetBlue is gonna win. The reason that spirit rejected was unacceptable level of closing risk. They feel like there's antitrust risk in the deal, um, there might be some merit to that, But you know, for the next 24 days, it will be high drama at the three boardrooms