Hawaiian to offer Hawaiian Airlines Inc., which in March called off its planned merger with rival Aloha Airlines, said today it will begin a tender offer to buy 17.46 percent of the company's outstanding common stock at $4.25 a share.
premium for stock
The airline plans to buy back
shares at $4.25 apieceBy Dave Segal
dsegal@starbulletin.com
The offer price for up to 5.88 million shares represents a 30.8 percent premium over the stock's closing price of $3.25 yesterday, its last trading day prior to the announcement. Hawaiian's stock closed today up 24 cents at $3.49 on the American Stock Exchange. Hawaiian has a total of about 34.2 million shares outstanding.
"We believe that this tender offer allows shareholders the opportunity to realize a portion of their investment in Hawaiian Airlines while retaining a continuing equity interest in our company," John W. Adams, chairman, chief executive and president, said in a statement. "Also, shareholders who choose not to tender their shares may also benefit from this offer because they will own a larger interest in our company with fewer shares outstanding."
Adams, who led the Airline Investors Partnership LP investor group that bought control of Hawaiian in 1996, said the group intends to tender all of its more than 18.1 million shares on the condition that whatever shares are accepted still enable AIP's ownership interest in Hawaiian to remain above 50 percent. AIP has a 53 percent stake.
Hawaiian's tender offer began today and will expire at midnight EDT June 27. Terms of the offer are being mailed to shareholders.
The company's stock, which hit a 52-week closing high of $4.45 March 5 -- less than two weeks before the merger died -- fell as low as $2.86 April 19.
Hawaiian also announced today that it has scheduled its annual shareholders meeting for Aug. 23.