Deft maneuvers on the Qantas deal

Posted May 5th 2007 1:10PM by Tom Taulli
Filed under: Deals, Private Equity

Last week, it certainly looked like the buyers of Qantas Airways -- Texas Pacific Group, Allco Equity Partners, and Onex Corp. -- did not have enough shareholder support for the $9 billion transaction.

Well, things can certainly change quickly and it appears that a U.S. investor has saved the day. This is according to a report in Bloomberg.

The conventional wisdom was that the tough hurdles of the deal would be the Australian government and unions. Actually, they proved fairly easy compared to some tough shareholders who want to maximize their returns.

Then again, Qantas is a great franchise and continues to grow. So why not try to get top dollar?

So it's going to be a long weekend for Qantas and its determined buyers. Although, this is still not a done deal. Now, in the next stage, Qantas will need to get 70% acceptance on the tender.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Tags: Allco Equity Partners, Onex, Qantas Airways, QantasAirways, Texas Pacific Group, TexasPacificGroup