Sold/Merger: Virgin America

The Virgin America-Alaska Airlines merger closed successfully and I was cashed out on December 16th. This is one of those deals that seemed like it had high chance of being completed but the return was low (unless you are a professional arbitrageur who uses leverage and has positions in numerous mergers at the same time). The spread was somewhat wider a month ago and I thought about increasing my stake but it seemed scary.

Sold/Merger Cash-out: US$72.00
Total Return: 5.37% (annualized: 54% (meaningless--too short of a holding period))

Good luck to all parties involved, especially the employees and customers who are impacted, and we will see if Alaska airlines can develop into a major national airline in the future (right now it is a west coast one).

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