Mid November last year, Arizona based US Airways announced its offer to acquire Delta Airlines Inc. for a net worth of $8.6 billion which was promptly rejected by Delta. Last week, US Airways upped this bid to a net worth of $10.2 billion. While claiming that their earlier offer would have been just as lucrative to Delta, they stated that this increased offer would serve to establish their commitment to increasing the wealth of Delta's unsecured creditors, what with Chapter 11 filing in place. The new offer includes a $5 billion dollar cash payment and roughly 90 million shares (at their Jan 9th closing price, totals to around $5.2 billion). In preliminary talks, Delta has rejected the deal yet again, reassuring shareholders that they are confident of coming out of bankruptcy in 2007. Going further, they claim that their research on the US Airways offer has not taken into account the cost of negative synergies involved in such an acquisition and that a total debt burden of $23 billion would end up having to be shouldered.

All this seemed pretty reasonable to me, however there was one lingering doubt I needed clarified. What makes an acquisition deal like this different from a merger. Other than, of course, that in a merger there would be new shares, probably new names, trademarks and symbols. It would be easier to understand if say Mark Cuban were approached by Microsoft to acquire the Dallas Mavericks franchise, bceause that would result in a conglomerate with Cuban walking off with cash and/or Microsoft shares. In the Delta-US Air case however, it took sometime for me to figure out the picture, but I think after some web research on M&A definitions, I finally got it. If Delta accedes to the acquisition request, it will be because it sees profit to the shareholder in the long run and it sees profit to the creditors who must be putting a lot of pressure on the rest of the board to pick the route that gets back their investments. And the $10.2 billion that is promised will go into the individual hands of the people that have sunk in the money which imho should include the creditors as well as the shareholder. I know it does include the creditors, but I pretty much doubt any share will go the other way. Another thing that confuses me is whether the word creditors includes shareholders as well? Because, in an acquisition there will not be any shares of Delta left, either they will need to be bought up by force of law or converted at some rate to US-Airways shares. I hope the deals goes through, so I can understand further how things work.

He waded across the moor, detaching predator underwater plants, the suckers of which clung to his skin. Oozing blood at his knees, wincing in pain, he grunted at the effort of hauling the large sack resting on his weary shoulders. He was six feet tall, built like an ox and yet his tired eyes betrayed the troubles that were keeping his mind hostage. A scar ran across his chin, splitting his lower lip in two, ending at the base of his neck. He was dirty and very much looked the part of a vagabond in a play on poverty stricken nomads, with scraggy hair running wild falling in a tangled heap below his shoulders. The only sign of contact with other humans was a basket of bread and a keg of wine bundled up on his left arm. Walking to the center of the marshpool, he set the bag down and holding his hands up in the air, began waving as he started chanting a strange mantra. It was eerie, and the whole night stood still while his voice pierced sharp yet booming through the wilderness. Sitting on watch atop an old oak tree, I could'nt make out what was in the sack but it looked big enough to hold a person. My suspicions were laid to waste when I saw him dig into the bag and pull out a huge sword studded with what looked like spider caracasses. He turned away from me and started swishing the sword to and fro continuing the increasingly piercing chanting. His voice rose to a fevered pitch as he started gesturing wildly with the sword swishing the air and slicing the dark waters of the lake. Curiosity go the better of me and I peeked through the foliage to get a better look. My heart skipped a beat as I heard it. Cursing myself I stood still hoping the chanting had drowned out the snap of a baby branch under my foot. It all happened so fast I had no time to react, he turned around and let the sword fly into the air with phenomenol force. As it came searing through the air towards me, I could feel a strange sinking sensation at the pit of my stomach. It was then that I realized what I had witnessed and it left me gasping for breath as I tried to comprehend how something that big had turned up so unexpectedly, with no more than a whisper. Being a straight A's student I had always trusted in science, in the belief of quantifying matter and energy, in Newton's laws, Kepler's observations, BigBang vs. String theory, Heisenberg's uncertainity principle, Darwin's theory of evolution, of aging, reproduction, genetics... Now it felt so childish, so stupid and silly. Why had'nt anyone realized this before? The explanation was as much out there as the sun that rose every morning, the truth had been brushing against us every moment of our lives...and yet, we had been so blind. Somehow, I knew nothing would come of trying to run, somehow, I knew there was no stopping the sword as it came pummelling through the night.....the spiders coalesced into one large beast enveloping me in eternal darkness.

Beakon knew how to handle his life very well indeed. With a wingspan of zero point two millimetres, he was a strong fairyfly indeed. He had been through hell in the last few days, working a double shift at McDonnald's stealing fries to feed his starving family. He had devised an elaborate plan that would ensure his family would have fries for the rest of their lifetime. It involved a stick with a huge bag of large fries hanging from it. An ingenous plan, for a wasp. With his wife holding the other end, they would be able to carry the large load back home. The large fries bag had taken him nearly eight months to collect and today was payoff. Living in the same beverly hills suburbs was Blad Plit, who had just quarrelled with Puffy Lipsy over their son's name. He wanted it to be Pringles but she just would'nt see his way. Fuming, he had taken off from home, banging the door behind. Puffy Lipsy was so distraught she went off into the game room to play some Lara Croft on her new alienware laptop. Blad strapped on a helmet, which read CHOPPER in bold engraving, a gift from his wife, got into his Harley and took off onto the road. Puffy Lipsy sat at the nearby McDonnald's a week later, crying over a bag of Pringles in her hand, fries on the tray lay untouched. The coroner's report had been brief. Two small wasps lay shattered on the helmet hanging in the garage, she had not wanted a thing touched.