--- title: "Apollo Gatecrashes the easyJet Takeover With a £5.7 Billion Bid" description: "A takeover fight has broken out over easyJet. The US private-equity firm Apollo has gatecrashed a deal the budget airline had provisionally agreed with rival Castlelake, offering about £5.7 billion, or 715 pence a share, and easyJet's board has switched its backing to the higher bid. The shares jumped around 14%." category: "Markets" category_url: https://boursel.com/category/markets author: "Marcus Feldman" published: 2026-07-10T07:37:36.000Z updated: 2026-07-10T07:37:36.000Z canonical: https://boursel.com/article/apollo-gatecrashes-the-easyjet-takeover-with-a-5-7-billion-pound-bid tags: ["easyjet", "apollo", "m-and-a", "private-equity", "airlines"] --- # Apollo Gatecrashes the easyJet Takeover With a £5.7 Billion Bid A takeover fight has broken out over easyJet. The US private-equity firm Apollo has gatecrashed a deal the budget airline had provisionally agreed with rival Castlelake, offering about £5.7 billion, or 715 pence a share, and easyJet's board has switched its backing to the higher bid. The shares jumped around 14%. A quiet takeover has turned into a contest. easyJet, the London-listed budget airline, had provisionally agreed to be bought by the US investment firm Castlelake. Now a bigger name in private equity, Apollo Global Management, has jumped in with a higher offer of about £5.7 billion, or 715 pence per share, and easyJet's board has said it is minded to recommend Apollo's bid instead, [CNBC reported](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/10/easyjet-apollo-takeover-bid-castlelake-share-price.html). The shares rose roughly 14% on the news. ## What has happened Apollo's 715 pence tops Castlelake's 690 pence, a proposal the two sides had agreed only days earlier, [Bloomberg reported](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-10/easyjet-gets-rival-offer-from-apollo-that-beats-castlelake-bid). The easyJet board said it was no longer minded to back Castlelake and would instead recommend Apollo's higher offer to shareholders. Under UK takeover rules, the bidders now face deadlines to firm up their offers: Apollo has until August 7 to make a binding bid or walk away, with Castlelake on a similar clock. A quick clarification of terms. These are still "proposals" or "approaches", not yet firm, binding offers; a board being "minded to recommend" signals support, but the formal offer and a shareholder vote come later. Both bids sit well above where easyJet's shares traded before takeover interest emerged, which is why the stock has climbed toward the offer level. ## Why private equity wants an airline Airlines are not the obvious prey for private equity: they are cyclical, capital-hungry and thin on margins. So why a bidding war? A big part of the answer is aircraft. A global shortage of new planes, caused by manufacturing delays at Airbus and Boeing, has made existing fleets unusually valuable. easyJet operates a large fleet of Airbus A320-family jets, and to a buyer, secured access to hundreds of aircraft, plus valuable airport slots and a strong low-cost brand, is a durable, hard-to-replicate asset rather than a quick trade. Both bidders are aviation specialists. Castlelake focuses on aircraft-backed financing, and Apollo has built up a portfolio of aviation and aircraft-leasing interests. For them, easyJet is less a bet on next quarter's ticket sales than a long-term infrastructure holding. ## The ownership catch There is a serious complication: who is allowed to own a European airline. EU rules require that an EU-licensed carrier be majority-owned and effectively controlled by EU nationals, capping outside ownership at 49.9%. Both Apollo and Castlelake are American, so any deal has to be structured around that limit, typically by placing majority ownership and control with EU-national partners while the fund holds a minority economic stake. Regulators, though, look past the headline share split to who really calls the shots, examining board seats, voting rights and financing. Satisfying them that a US firm does not, in substance, control the airline is one of the hardest parts of any such deal, and a reason approval could stretch well into next year. ## Why it matters The fight is a striking sign of where money is flowing in aviation. European carriers have been held back by a sluggish recovery, high costs and the plane shortage, which has left some looking cheap on the stock market even as their physical assets, jets and slots, become more prized. Private equity has spotted that gap. A contested, multibillion-pound bid for a household-name budget airline says buyers see structural value in low-cost carriers, and it will test both Europe's airline-ownership rules and whether easyJet ends up in private hands. This article is informational and not investment advice. ## Sources - [EasyJet pops 14% as airline weighs $7.7 billion rival takeover bid from Apollo](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/10/easyjet-apollo-takeover-bid-castlelake-share-price.html) - [EasyJet gets rival offer from Apollo that beats Castlelake bid](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-10/easyjet-gets-rival-offer-from-apollo-that-beats-castlelake-bid)