Today was the big day for US Airways. Delta let them come on in and make their presentation in front of management and creditors. So how did it go?
Well, according to the US Airways press release, CEO Doug Parker said, “We were pleased to have made a presentation to both Delta and its creditors about what we believe are the compelling and unique benefits of our plan. . . . ” blah blah blah. Well what do you expect him to say?
And how about the response from Delta?
Well the PR from that camp was hardly as gracious.
Consistent with our obligation to review US Airways’ unsolicited proposal,
today we, along with representatives of our Creditors’ Committee, met to listen
to US Airways’ presentation concerning US Airways’ proposal to merge with
Delta.While we will fulfill this obligation, we will, as we have stated,
continue to progress toward filing our stand-alone plan by the end of the
year, which would have us emerge from bankruptcy as a highly competitive,
independent and financially sound airline by mid-2007. Our plan is working and
we have tremendous, hard-won confidence in it.’
In other words . . . you suck, go away.
They have to say they’re reviewing the proposal or there would be plenty of shareholder lawsuits saying that they aren’t exploring all possible options. But this is pretty clear that they don’t care how good the offer is, they still think they have a better plan.
Personally, I’m not so sure about that. Let’s see how the creditors feel.