Easyjet board reaches agreement over £5.2bn Castlelake takeover

The board of Easyjet is poised to accept a takeover bid by private equity firm Castlelake, in a move that could add the airline to a growing list of blue-chip companies that have unveiled plans to quit the London Stock Exchange since the start of the year.

The offer of £6.90 per share, the fifth consecutive bid that Castlelake has made for Easyjet, is significantly higher than its original £5.60 bid but remains short of the £7 per share offer that some shareholders had been holding out for. It values the company at £5.2bn — or £5.5bn on a fully diluted basis, a spokesperson said.

“Having carefully reviewed it with its advisers, the board of easyJet concluded that the financial terms of the fifth proposal are at a value that the board would be minded to recommend to Easyjet shareholders,” the airline said in a statement.

Easyjet previously took aim at ‘opportunistic’ takeover bid

Easyjet’s move to reach a deal with Castlelake came after it rejected a string of previous takeover proposals, describing them as “opportunistic” at a time when its share price has fallen to comparative lows due to the Iran war.

Following the rejection of its third bid, the private equity firm made a public appeal for investors to review the bid themselves and lobby the airline to engage with it.

The bidder criticised the carrier for its “unwillingness to engage meaningfully” with its interest in a takeover, which kicked off with its first bid on 12 June.

Some investors have been urging Easyjet to hold out for a £7 per share offer. One large shareholder told the Financial Times: “I think they’ll engage if the price is at seven plus.”

But after a fourth takeover offer of £6.50, Easyjet’s board signalled it was willing to engage with the private equity firm and said it plans to give the bidder some commercial information to help it produce a “more attractive proposal”.

This bidding vehicle would be 49 per cent owned by Castlelake and 51 per cent by EU nationals, including former Malaysia Airlines boss Peter Bellew and Mark Breen, chief executive of Dublin-based Oneiros Aerospace.

Their involvement in the bid is necessary due to EU competition rules which require the takeover to have significant involvement from European citizens.