Lufthansa, the German flag carrier and Europe’s second largest airline, is buying a 19% stake in JetBlue Airways, the US low cost airline, the first such move by a European network carrier. The German group is paying around $300m for the holding, which will be bought through a private placement by JetBlue of about 42m new shares. Lufthansa will pay $7.27 per share, representing a 16% premium to Wednesday’s closing price of $6.25. It will have one director on the JetBlue board. Lufthansa is taking advantage both of the steep decline in the JetBlue share this year, which has more than halved, and of the weakness of the US dollar against the euro.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 5:37 and is filed under Capital markets, M&A. Tagged with JetBlue, lufthansa. Edit this entry.