This complementary combination fits strategically with Alaska Airlines’ longstanding focus on expanding options for West Coast travelers, and creates an important new global platform to further enhance Alaska Airlines’ organic growth. The transaction is expected to deliver attractive value creation for Alaska Airlines’ shareholders while providing a significant premium for Hawaiian Airlines’ shareholders.
Compelling transaction rationale
Adds
complementary top-25 U.S. market and international routes, improving relevance and driving higher traffic through combined network and oneworld Alliance
Creates
a leader in $8B+ Hawai‘i market, unlocking hub economics in one of the most globally attractive leisure markets with a historical track record of profitability
Delivers
robust financial returns, with near term earnings and ROIC accretion supported by attractive valuation and identified synergy opportunities, with further potential upside
Expands
benefits and choice for guests through enhanced network utility and diversified product offering, with a focus on high-quality service and strong operational performance
Combines
two companies with shared cultures, values and approaches to service, with clear benefits for our combined workforce and communities served
Transaction overview
- All-cash transaction of $18.00 per share for a total equity value of $1.0 billion provides a compelling premium for Hawaiian Airlines’ shareholders.
- Transaction multiple of 0.68 times revenue, approximately one third the average of recent airline transactions.
- Approximately $235 million of expected run-rate synergies reflect a conservative estimate of the transaction’s synergy potential; these exclude other identified upside opportunities that could be realized.
- Expected to be accretive to earnings in the first year post-close and accretive to ROIC by year three, excluding integration costs, with returns above Alaska Airlines’ cost of capital.
- No anticipated material impact on long-term balance sheet metrics, with return to target leverage levels expected within 24 months.
Supporting materials
What people are saying
…we’re hard-pressed to identify any facets of the deal that don’t echo our prevailing thoughts on the merits of consolidation. For those requiring a monosyllabic sound bite: this one makes sense to us.
Jamie Baker, JP Morgan
This transaction makes good common sense for both airlines. For Alaska, it enables international growth in the Asia Pacific region…For Hawaiian, it enables their passengers to fly to more places…
Helene Becker, TD Cowen
We recently moved ALK up our order of preference, largely because of their push toward premium as a domestic carrier, which went as far as taking the extraordinary step of buying HA.
Ravi Shanker, Morgan Stanley