Spirit Airlines for a fourth time has postponed a shareholder vote on its agreement to merge with Frontier Airlines, the company announced Wednesday. The special meeting, now scheduled for July 27, most recentlyhad been set for July 15.
Frontier is in a bidding war with JetBlue to acquire Spirit.
The move comes after Frontier CEO Barry Biffle sent a letter dated July 10 to Spirit CEO Ted Christie noting that “we still remain very far from obtaining approval from Spirit stockholders based on the proxy data we received as of July 8,” and requesting that the low-cost carrier once more postpone the special stockholder meeting to the new date, “in order to permit additional time to solicit additional voting proxies in favor of the transaction” if Spirit had not received a sufficient number of shares approving the proposed merger with Frontier by July 15.
Further, the letter noted that Frontier did not intend to up the ante for the carrier after JetBlue had increased its bid yet again, and that and “Spirit should consider the terms of the Merger Agreement, as most recently amended on June 24, 2022, as representing Frontier’s last, best and final offer with respect to the pending merger.”
In Wednesday’s postponement announcement, Spirit’s Christie reiterated the board’s commitment to the Frontier transaction and “strongly recommends” stockholders vote for the merger.
In response to the vote postponement, JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes said in a statement that despite Frontier’s offer being final and Spirit not yet receiving sufficient approval votes, “by moving the Special Meeting again, the Spirit Board is delaying the ability of Spirit shareholders to receive JetBlue’s superior terms.”
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