Hawaiian Airlines Deal Is Revised to Provide Capital

The investment group seeking to acquire Hawaiian Airlines has altered its purchase agreement in order to pump an additional $15.4 million working capital into the financially ailing carrier.

J. Thomas Talbot, the Newport Beach attorney heading the investment group, also said Monday that the acquisition of the airline holding company, HAL Inc. of Honolulu, is expected to be completed on Dec. 29.

The $22-a-share acquisition price has not been changed. The Talbot group will pay $27.4 million if the minimum number of shares are tendered, or $41.8 million if all 1.9 million shares outstanding are offered.

The amended deal, disclosed Monday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, calls for the investment group--which includes former baseball commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth--to swap a new class of preferred stock for 700,000 shares of HAL common stock held by the company’s current chairman, 73-year-old John H. Magoon Jr.

The new terms, agreed upon by both sides, would make $15.4 million previously earmarked for the purchase of Magoon’s stock available for working capital.

Magoon still would receive nearly $9 million for 400,000 additional shares.

The deal was changed, Talbot said, after it apparent that the airline was in a “deteriorating financial condition” and needed the extra capital.

The amended deal calls for the Talbot group to pay cash for at least 545,582 shares and, upon completion of that purchase and the group’s merger into HAL, for the company to swap 154,000 shares of newly authorized series B preferred stock to Magoon for 700,000 shares of the common stock he now controls. The Talbot group then would buy the common shares directly from the company.