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Frontier Group Holdings Inc

For the period ended Mar 31, 2024. Filed May 2, 2024.

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About this filing

A company's report for each of its first three quarters. The financial statements are not audited. It shows how the business has moved since the last annual report, and what management says changed.

Mar 31, 2024 · Filed May 2, 2024

ULCC$8.35+12.4%Stored close · as of Nov 9, 2026

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Item 1A. Risk Factors

There have been no material changes to the risk factors disclosed in Item 1A “Risk Factors” contained in our 2023 Annual Report, except for the change to the following risk factors. Investors are urged to review all such risk factors carefully.

Risk Related to Our Business

We rely on our private equity sponsor.

Indigo Partners, LLC (“Indigo Partners”) is a private equity fund with significant expertise in the ultra low-cost airline business, and this expertise has been available to us through the persons affiliated with Indigo Partners on our board of directors and through a Professional Services Agreement that was put in place in connection with the 2013 acquisition from Republic Airways Holdings, Inc. and pursuant to which we are charged a fee by Indigo Partners of approximately $375,000 per quarter, plus expenses. We also pay each director affiliated with Indigo Partners an annual director’s fee as compensation. Our engagement of Indigo Partners pursuant to the Professional Services Agreement will continue until the date that Indigo Partners and its affiliates own less than approximately 19.8 million shares of our common stock. In April 2024, an investment fund affiliated with Indigo Denver Management Company, LLC (“Indigo”) distributed all of the shares of our common stock held by the investment fund to its members on a pro rata basis, in-kind and without consideration (the “Share Distribution”). Approximately 99.4 million shares were distributed to William Franke, the Chair of our Board, or entities directly or indirectly controlled by him, including Indigo and Indigo Partners. Although Indigo Partners and its affiliates, including William Franke, continue to own a substantial percentage of our outstanding common stock following the Share Distribution, Indigo Partners and its affiliates may nonetheless elect to reduce their ownership in our company or reduce their involvement on our board of directors, which could reduce or eliminate the benefits we have historically achieved through our relationship with Indigo Partners, such as management expertise, industry knowledge and volume purchasing. For more information on the Share Distribution, please refer to our Current Report on Form 8-K filed on March 29, 2024.

Risk Related to Owning Our Common Stock

The value of our common stock may be materially adversely affected by additional issuances of common stock or preferred stock by us or sales by our principal stockholder or its transferees.

Any future issuances or sales of our common stock by us will be dilutive to our existing common stockholders. We had 223.9 million shares of common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2024. An investment fund managed by Indigo, which held approximately 178.8 million shares of our common stock as of March 31, 2024, was entitled to rights with respect to registration of all such shares under the Securities Act pursuant to a registration rights agreement. Following the Share Distribution, certain of the recipients of such shares are entitled to the registration of their shares pursuant to the registration rights agreement. Sales of substantial amounts of our common stock in the public or private market, a perception in the market that such sales could occur or the issuance of securities exercisable or convertible into our common stock could adversely affect the prevailing trading price of our common stock.

Our anti-takeover provisions may delay or prevent a change of control, which could adversely affect the price of our common stock.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may make it difficult to remove our board of directors and management and may discourage or delay “change of control” transactions, which could adversely affect the trading price of our common stock. These provisions include, among others:

our board of directors is divided into three classes, with each class serving for a staggered three-year term, which prevents stockholders from electing an entirely new board of directors at an annual meeting;

no cumulative voting in the election of directors, which prevents the minority stockholders from electing director candidates;

actions to be taken by our stockholders may only be affected at an annual or special meeting of our stockholders and not by written consent;

special meetings of our stockholders may be called only by the Chair of our board of directors or by our corporate secretary at the direction of our board of directors;

advance notice procedures that stockholders must comply with in order to nominate candidates to our board of directors and propose matters to be brought before an annual meeting of our stockholders may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of our company;

a majority stockholder vote is required for removal of a director only for cause (and a director may only be removed for cause), and a 66 2⁄3% stockholder vote is required for the amendment, repeal or modification of certain provisions of our certificate of incorporation and bylaws; and

our board of directors may, without stockholder approval, issue series of preferred stock, or rights to acquire preferred stock, that could dilute the interest of, or impair the voting power of, holders of our common stock or could also be used as a method of discouraging, delaying or preventing a change of control.

Certain anti-takeover provisions under Delaware law also apply to us. While we have elected not to be subject to the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (“DGCL”) in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, such certificate of incorporation provides that in the event Indigo Partners and its affiliates cease to beneficially own at least 15% of the then-outstanding shares of our voting common stock, we will automatically become subject to Section 203 of the DGCL to the extent applicable. Under Section 203, a corporation may not, in general, engage in a business combination with any holder of 15% or more of its voting stock unless the holder has held the stock for three years or, among other things, the board of directors has approved the transaction.

We are no longer a “controlled company” within the meaning of the Nasdaq Stock Market rules. However, we may continue to rely on exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements during the applicable transition periods.

Following the Share Distribution, the investment fund managed by Indigo no longer controlled a majority of the voting power of our outstanding common stock, and we ceased to be a “controlled company” within the meaning of the Nasdaq Stock Market rules. As a result, the rules of the Nasdaq Stock Market require that, within 90 days of the date we no longer qualified as a “controlled company,” we have a compensation committee consisting of a majority of independent directors and a director nominations process whereby directors are selected by a nominations committee consisting of a majority of independent directors or by a vote of the board of directors in which only independent directors participate, and that, within one year of the date we no longer qualified as a “controlled company,” we have a majority of independent directors on our board of directors, a compensation committee consisting solely of independent directors, and a director nominations process whereby directors are selected by a nominations committee consisting solely of independent directors or by a vote of the board of directors in which only independent directors participate. During this transition period, we may continue to utilize the available exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements as permitted by the rules of the Nasdaq Stock Market, and our Compensation Committee and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee do not presently consist solely of independent directors. Accordingly, during the transition period, you will not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to all of the corporate governance requirements of the Nasdaq Stock Market, which could make our common stock less attractive to some investors or otherwise adversely affect its trading price.

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