Lufthansa/swiss: clever structuring

摘要

Lufthansa has announced the initial details of its acquisition of swiss. ABN Amro has reported that despite fears that the market might be concerned about certain aspects of the transaction, the deal appears to be cleverly constructed. A Swiss trust (AirTrust) is to be established by the existing major shareholders of swiss. At the time of writing, Swiss's large shareholders had sold almost 84% of the carrier's capital to AirTrust, this is almost all of the 86% previously held by large shareholders such as the canton of Zurich, banks Credit Suisse and UBS and the car import and dealership group AMAG. In May 2005, the trust is to make an offer to the 15% freefloat shareholders of swiss for a price of ?45m (CHF71m). After this transaction, Lufthansa will own 11% of the trust.