Crossing the wires. It is official. Joseph a. Bank is acquiring eddie bower for more than 800 million in cash and stocks. Talks will be rooub roumored ea this morning. Joseph a. Bank does have the right to end that agreement if it receives an acquisition bid that et feels would create more shareholder value. Joesest a. Bank and menswearhouse have made bids in the last few months. Andrew, youve had some pretty strong thoughts about this move when it was first rumored that it might be happening. This is the talk to the hand because its nanny, nanny, nanny. Yeah. Craziness. We can talk about that more in just a moment. Weve got some frozennomics to talk about first. The unusually harsh winter will be trimming 0. 3 Percentage Points from gdp this quarter pulling q1s annualized growth rate down to 2. 2 . The weather has closed businesses. Its disrupted transportation supply chains and kept a lot of shoppers at home. Among the other drags on the economy, energy bills as consumers have to pay a lot more to keep warm. The general survey, taking before this weeks latest storms, those polls said the economy should pick up once those moderate. We have a storm coming tonight, joe, and another one to three, apparently. And tuesday . Maybe tuesdays not on. I dont know. You remember when i brought in last week your newspaper . It says the end of snow with i didnt save that. I wanted to actually have that you should see my house. Ive got drifts like this. I wanted to stand in front of it where it says the end of snow. I believe and i dont know this. I thought it was written by a ski editor and it was about the end of snow at some of the great ski resorts. I went back and read it after joe talked about it. It said the end of snow. He didnt specify that this was the end of snow just a there. The end of snow everywhere . He was talking about it from his perspective on that. But i didnt see the framing that was like, basically, the snow has moved. I only read probably the first three or four paragraphs. Ill show you the comments from 2008 where he blamed the end of snow on sarah palins love for big oil. But he said kids in virginia will not snow what snow is very, very soon. Theres a lot of people that said you will not know your kids will grow up not knowing politics aside luckily, you changed it to change. To climate change. Yeah. So now you see, you do need to decide. Ive seen the alarmists. They said no snow means its happening and lots of snow means its happening. Now i guess theyre on the lots of snow means its happening. But you have to make up your mind. The farmers almanac was right this year, really cold, a lot of snow and the farmers almanac is a better model. But i think municipalities and states are gsh municip mus are going to have a rough time. Here on the east coast, theyve run through the snowplow budgets and the salt budgets. There wasnt a road plowed between here and my house this morning. I think people are exhausted from all the plowing. Its really pretty amazing. In our headlines this morning, Procter Gamble is reportedly beginning the search for candidates to succeed the chairman aa. G. Lafley. He was not going to be a long timer. The household productsmaker said considering some of its current and former executives, no normal search process is under way. It would help us if that mohler guy would get it. We like him and just for us as a show, i dont know if it would be good for the company, but we would be able to get the ceo of p g all the time. Go john. Yeah, go john. The 66yearold came out of retirement after his successor was abruptly replaced last year amid prompting from investors. And tesla closed at an alltime high yesterday. Earlier this month in toronto, a model s parked in a garage reportedly caught on fire after it was taken for a drive and was not plugged in. Tesla confirms the fire, but its down playing the incident saying the fire didnt originate in the battery or the charging system or the adapter or the electrical do they have to responds every time this is a question. Does it have to respond every time dallas fire of any sort . Yeah. And when was the last time you heard but this is new technology. The point being that it wasnt any of these things, you still have to respond to it. There still are questions about the technology. So theres going to be one on month i dont know what the average has been. There are fewer model ss on the road. And if 12 of these cars are on fire, i think its a pretty big deal percentagewise after the number they have out there. How many cars do they have out there, do we know . Youre talking about the pretty woman that may have been bought by four seasones. Sorry. The topic from before the show. Its nice, but its kind of old. Back to the model s, i dont know how many there are on the road. I would think the percentage numbers at this point maybe arent a big deal yet, but we are interesting. If you hear about these buyers, you want to hear what happened. Its the fifth place, though, involving a model s in the last five months. Regulators are currently investigating the cars battery safety system. The elon musk says he believes that the nhtsas probe will end. But we have had people say that because the battery is spread out over the entire car that if you hit a pothole those are the guys that must be short the stock, the ones that say stuff like that. But there are people that say its really safe. Even having said all this, id drive one. But because its the entire bottom of the car is yeah. Just to put it on record, there are, according to the l. A. Times, about 23,000 model s cars that were sold, in 2013. But five fires on 23,000 versus the number of fires you have in the United States on every other car versus how many cars are out there what happened to this gm car . 778,000 being recalled of these crappy little cobalts and opponent y pontiac g5. I think oprah gave away a g5. Isnt that what she gave away . She gave away one of those small, crummy looking a g5 . I think, remember she everybody gets a car. When i think of g5, i think are you thinking of a g spot of something . What g you mean you think jet . You do. You think caviar . You think cobalt and i think about the plane. The 1 ier. Caviar. You would like those caviar chips that carl tried the other day. I might. I have a note to have him bring them back. On other auto news this morning, chinas state media slamming aston martin over its slamming of a sports recall. Recalling more than 17,000 cars, what sort of vehicles did it produce in late 2007 . It discovered a chinese subsupplier using counterfeit material in its accelerator pedal arms. But china media says the carmaker invoted a stereotype to mask its own short comings. I love this little battle. Other major corporations such as apple, walmart and yumm brands have all attracted criticism from chinese media, as well. Tech news to get to this morning, as well, Microsofts Windows 8 system has now recorded more than 200 million licenses since 18 months ago. It now lags windows 7 which launched 240 million within its first year. This is the first microsoft to stay public for more than six months. Microsoft Research Reports only 11 of pc users worldwide are using windows 8 or 8. 1. 48 are sticking with windows 7 and 29 are still running windows xp, which is now more than a decade old. Do we have windows xp on our computers, folks . The ones right in front of us are window xp. Buehler. Buehler. I have a High Performance pascale. Did you see pretty woman . Years ago. Thats the beverly wilshire, right . Owned by the four seasons now. Four seasons on putting it out there. Four seasons on dohini. Anyway, number of stocks its all about 1 here. You saw Robert Franks piece. Did you see how we titled that . I dont know what youre talking about. We had with guy on from nicole miller. So we entitled the piece, i think whoever titled it, rich ceo the 1 . Says the recent ceo says poor people just get over. So the Huffington Post picks it up immediately and put it there. And robert frank put dell tails in there. 31 around around the world, china, you being the upper 30th in china. Anyway, a number of stocks are moving in extended trading, kraft reporting a higher quarterly profit, lower costs and high accounts gains. But the food giant says it expects a slow start to the year in part due to the weak u. S. Job market and the recent reduction in federal food stamp benefits. And shares of aig getting a boost after the Insurance Companies earnings and revenues beat the street. Aig raising its Quarterly Dividend by 25 to 13 cents a share. And brocade up in extended trading. You always go straight to the prompter. I never deviate. Betterthanexpected earnings and revenue, were to talk to the companys ceo at 8 30 this morning. But Weight Watchers was a big loser after the bell. I heard about this, also. Oh, my god, i wanted to if i hear if they give me the world again in 20 minutes, because its a 60minute drive. Ive got the world three times and they just keep tossing to people, tossing, tossing, i didnt like it. Shares of the diet company the guy who the anchor in the morning is pretty funny. Hes talking to some lady driving you around out in long island. Oh, its slippery out. It was slippery yesterday. But he definitely adlibs some stuff. You have to listen to the guy. Hes pretty funny. There are some crazy ones. No, but hes actually funny. You can tell hes writing i would rather listen to some jazz. I used to have my radio show on. Thats a big selling point. Shares of the diet company fell sharply after it offered a full year earnings forecast far short of wall street. You know what people are doing . Theyre wearing your stupid things now, your bracelets, and theyre monitoring your own weight and theyre not using Weight Watchers anytime. Thats the competition from diet app and calorie counting gadgets. Im up to speed because of 1010 wyn. Anyway, the company seas its going to finalize plans to reorganize its business. This is the fourth time. This is the fourth time ive had a dose of youre going to be fun by 8 00. Mac, coffee . Do we have oh. Well, i didnt have time because it takes an hour to get in. It takes an hour to get in. 15 minutes to the show. No, its true. I thought i was going to have a wet head still i walked in so late because i was driving 10 Miles Per Hour because its a mess out there. And tomorrow morning and again tonight. But the kids have school today. Did you see what the rokanator said . My man al. Oh, yes. I heard that. He its because de blasio blamed the weather forecasters. And it was like, wait a second, we were on de blasio, i thought that he sort of stood down on this whole thing. Well, they did. They sent kids no, he said i respect al and the whole thing. Al said i have a forecast for de blasio, one term. When i thought was, wow, step out. Willie geist was sending pictures of al tweeting all this stuff. Al is in sochi, right . Yes. Anyway, lets get more details on this joes on he a. Bank deal to buy eddie bauer. Joining us on the squawk news line is gilbert harrison, adviser to joseph a. Bank for a long time. Good morning. Good morning. Is this deal just a way for joesest a. Bank to thumb its nose at mens wearhouse . No way, becky. We were first karr contacted, eddie bauer in february 2012, two years ago, when we were retained to start the acquisition search. This was one of the First Companies we contacted, actually, one of two. And say Golden Gate Bridge owns them, had just bought it recently. They were in the process of turning them down. We talked to them several times during the process and finally a month or so ago they agreed to talk to us. Its a great deal. And you couple this deal with the tender offer, which im sure youve seen it, 65 a share, its a winwin situation for the company and its shareholders. What i dont understand is i could see the mens wearhouse joesest a. Banks deal lining up beautifully in terms of the synergies, in terms of the overlap. Eddie bauer to me is a very different business than jous he a. Banks. What do these companies together look like . These companies have a potential to be a diversified apparel retailer with huge Growth Potential over many years. The mens wearhouse acquisition gave you significant synergies. We thought maybe 75 million of synergies rather than 125. But after two, three years, your category would be filled up and the growth would slow down. With the eddie bauer situation, we have tremendous growth that will continue for a long period of time. They havent saturated the business and the new Management Team thats been put in, including mike ejax who turned around north face and columbia is extremely good. You couple that with bob eldridge and neal black, and you have an unbelievable we think growth story with a diversified business portfolio. Bring us behind the scenes a little bit so we understand what happened. Would have been covering this, i almost feel like for months looking at the mens warehouse and joesest a. Banks deal back and forth. It felt like a little bit of ego got in the way of that transaction. Both sides wanted to ultimately merge, but both sides wanted to run the company. I think it was more than that. We approached mens wearhouse last september. We did it quietly. Talking to doug ebert, the coo. We sent them a letter. We heard silence, silence, silence. We were patient. We happened to do a friendly deal. We talk about the synergies. We offered them a 42 premium over their price the day they sent the letter. A 26 premium over their last high over the last six years. And what happened . They not only leaked it to the press, they came back and they absolutely trashed our company and told us that we didnt know what we were doing. We grew over the last six years 11 11. 6 in sales. They fell. That 12 included the bad year we had last year. So copy autopll of these things together, copy their comments about antitrust and that would be an antitrust situation. And you know that we have gotten now inquiries from the fcc about antitrust. It was a nutty situation. Although, gill, let me ask you this. Is this idea of the mens wearhouse deal completely off the table . Because you have the right to terminate the agreement in order to accept a superior proposal. How likely do you think it is that a mens wearhouse deal would come back . I think its up to mens wear house. We have a fiduciary duty to do whats in the best interest of our shareholders. There is a fiduciary out that we have should mens warehouse come back and offer us something that would make sense. As you know, when we reject the 57 a share, it was so below what our company is worth, another one without the synergies and with the synergies potentially significantly more. Real quick, is there a breakup fee on this transaction if mens wearhouse wanted to jump in . Yes, there is. Whats the price . A little less than 3 . Gill, thank you very much. Its great talking to you. Okay. Thank you. Happy valentines day to all of you. You, too. Thanks. Break up fee. Look at this. A merger and marriage on valentines day. Isnt that a nice thing . Really nice. Really nice. What color is that tie . Youre a real you know what . I had a red tie. I preferred you already had your red. Thats your only red tie of the season . Well, i couldnt find my other red tie. Im almost red. We will come back. Will you be my valentine . More than your valentine. Coming up, a sector literally grounded by the snow and ice. How much is this powerful storm going to impact the Airline Industry right before a big getaway day . And while its snow and cold here in the states, its springlike at the Winter Olympics. Weve got highlights, fresh medal count and a ceo doing big time business in russia. Thats coming up in the next half hour. Were back in a moment. Announcer before you hit the road, here is your travelers check. Winter storms, storm related or not, its always good to know which airline has the best ontime performance. So which one topped the list for 2013 sflp thats next. vo you are a business pro. Seeker of the sublime. You can separate runway ridiculousness. From fashion that flies off the shelves. And you. Rent from national. Because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. And go. And only national is ranked highest in car rental Customer Satisfaction by j. D. Power. natalie ooooh, i like your style. vo so do we, business pro. So do we. Go national. Go like a pro. Where you think youre gonna go when your times all gone . [ male announcer ] live a full life. The new lexus ct hybrid with an epa estimated 42 mpg. The further you go, the more interesting it gets. Lease the 2014 ct 200h for 299 a month for 27 months. See your lexus dealer. Translator which airline had the best on time performance last year . Hawaiian airlines was the top carrier for ontime arrivals, followed by Alaska Airlines and delta. Thats according to the u. S. Department of transportation. We got our own frozennomics travelers check right now. Lets get a sense of how the Major Airlines are faring during this deep freeze. Good morning to you. Good morning. Help us through this. If we were to sort of list in a one, two, three manner, who is is getting hit the most . And then is there any airline thats not getting hit in all of this . Sure. Its just the weather weve had so far this quarter has probably hit jet blue, given their exposure to the east coast a lot. It has impacted united american given the strong weather in chicago and new york and to a lesser extent southwest. Delta. Probably the least impacted from the carriers that we cover are probably the ones who focus on the west coast, like alaska. As well as spirit has not had as much impact from the weather this season. And what kind of numbers are we talking about . Every year they always lose some money when theres weatherrelated events, but this winter is obviously very different thus far. Yes. Its in a more difficult winter this year. The january storms are already in estimates. A big storm over a Holiday Weekend. If its really bad can have about a 5 impact to earnings. My guess is this weekend is probably going to be a little less than that. But, you know, despite all of this, youre going to see most of the air lines report a profit in the First Quarter of this year. Seasonally the weaks quarter. Historically, going back a few years, it was only a have you few airlines that made profits in the fist quarter. So its a healthy industry and one that can make it through this