TPG, the US private equity group, and British Airways were expected on Monday to abandon their plan to mount a takeover bid for Spain’s Iberia, the fourth-largest European airline. The five-member consortium led by TPG and BA was expected to withdraw after a hostile response to its proposed bid from Caja Madrid, the Spanish savings bank. BA and Caja Madrid each hold a stake of just under 10% in Iberia as part of a group of core shareholders with rights of first refusal on each other’s stakes. The collapse of the TPG-BA consortium’s bid approach was expected to follow BA’s Monday’s announcement that it would not exercise its pre-emptive rights to acquire any Iberia shares held by BBVA and Logista, two other core shareholders.
