DALLAS — AMR Corp.’s American Airlines, one of two U.S. carriers vying for a stake in Japan Airlines Corp., may be trying to signal financial strength by raising cash and refinancing debt.

“The capital raising not only provides potential funds for a strategic transaction with JAL, but the equity, convertible and debt-related financing announcements in their entirety may be an effort to better display AMR’s financial resiliency as an alliance partner,” said Douglas Runte, managing director at Piper Jaffray & Co. in New York. He doesn’t rate the shares.
American is in talks with JAL about options ranging from a joint business relationship to “possible capital or financing arrangements,” according to a U.S. regulatory filing. Delta Air Lines Inc. also is in discussions with Tokyo-based Japan Air about a stake, a Japanese government official has said.
AMR’s private offering of $450 million in senior secured notes announced today builds on sales of stock and debt and new jet financing unveiled in the past week. Shares of the Fort Worth, Texas-based company have more than tripled since March 5, when the Bloomberg U.S. Airlines Index tumbled to its 2009 low.
“It all ties together,” Daniel McKenzie, an analyst at Next Generation Equity Research LLC in Chicago, said of American’s financing and a possible Japan Air stake. A JAL investment wouldn’t be “something they’d want to spare from their existing liquidity position.”