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- BUSINESS, Page 45Business NotesAIRLINESGo Northwest, Young Man
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- After three months on the auction block, NWA, the parent
- company of Northwest Airlines, has cast its lot with the man who
- started the bidding war in the first place. Last week NWA's
- board decided to sell the company for $4.05 billion to a group
- of investors headed by Los Angeles financier Alfred Checchi,
- 41, a former Marriott executive. Checchi's partners include the
- Dutch airline KLM, which will invest $400 million; San Francisco
- investment banker Richard Blum ($100 million); and Walt Disney
- chief financial officer Gary Wilson ($40 million). The NWA board
- favored Checchi's bid because his group offered a $700 million
- cash down payment, pledged to keep expanding the fourth largest
- U.S. airline, and promised to retain the carrier's current
- management. But the $3.35 billion in bank loans that will be
- used to finance the deal will make Northwest the most heavily
- indebted U.S. airline after Texas Air, the parent firm of
- Continental and bankrupt Eastern.
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