As bankrupt American Airlines parent AMR Corp. prepares to close a merger with US Airways Group Inc., the stock trades at just below $11, and a small group of investors who bet on it when it was flying low when it filed for bankruptcy in 2011 are poised to reap one of the biggest bankruptcy windfalls in years, the Wall Street Journal reported today. That is thanks in part to a little-noticed quirk in the deal that means their holdings could translate into much larger stakes than previously expected in the combined airline, to be called American Airlines Group Inc. For an investor who bought American shares at their lowest closing price two years ago, the increase of more than 40 times to its current level is the best return over that period of any U.S.-listed company with a market value today of at least $300 million, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from FactSet.
