London, June 30, 2026, 22:02 BST
- easyJet dropped 4.05% to finish at 558.4p. The FTSE 250 barely moved. London trading was closed at press time.
- Shares finished 91.6p under Castlelake’s 650p-a-share rejected bid, or about £694 million in equity value based on current shares outstanding.
- Citi and RBC both downgraded ratings on Tuesday, citing risks with the deal and a more challenging summer trading setup after the stock surged.
easyJet plc (LON:EZJ) dropped sharply Tuesday after brokers cut ratings, flagging risk that talks with Castlelake might fail. Shares ended down 4.05% at 558.4p, while the FTSE 250 Index (INDEXFTSE:MCX) slipped just 0.01%. Trading volume came in around 10.86 million, higher than Google Finance’s 8.41 million average.
Shares finished the day well under Castlelake’s latest offer. The U.S. investor had bid 650p per share—about £4.93 billion, according to Reuters. At Tuesday’s close and with 758.01 million shares outstanding, the company was valued at roughly £694 million less than that. Some large shareholders want £7 a share, which would mean a market cap near £5.31 billion and put the gap close to £1.07 billion over Tuesday’s value.
| Reference price | Pence per share | Implied equity value | Gap to Tuesday close |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday finish | 558.4p | £4.23 bln | — |
| Castlelake bid turned down | 650.0p | £4.93 bln | £694 mln |
| FT says shareholder wants | 700.0p | £5.31 bln | £1.07 bln |
The spread is key here as easyJet is now trading both on deal odds and airline performance. RBC said shares have climbed about 44% since the Castlelake bid was made public. Citi’s numbers show the gain is 75% from the mid-May low.
Citi lowered easyJet to neutral/high risk from buy/high risk, while raising its price target to 580p from 500p. RBC also downgraded easyJet, moving to sector perform from outperform, but took its target up to 600p from 405p.
| Price point | Level | Upside to Tuesday close | Market read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Citi target | 580p | 3.9% | Downgrade left a narrow spread |
| RBC target | 600p | 7.5% | Lower than the bid turned down |
| Castlelake proposal | 650p | 16.4% | Non-binding offer |
| £7 level | 700p | 25.4% | This is the price some investors ask for |
The bear argument is front and center. RBC said, “no certainty that a firm offer will be made, or a price can be agreed,” and warned easyJet could drop over 20% in the near term if there’s no takeover. Citi said trading “continues to sound challenging for summer,” pointing to soft pricing and trouble for UK-Spain routes, with London hit especially hard by Jet2 plc (LON:JET2). Investing.com South Africa
The bid story is still in play. easyJet turned down Castlelake’s fourth offer last week but is letting the bidder look at some commercial data. Goodbody’s Dudley Shanley told Reuters the airline is “for sale at the right price.” Samuel Ziff at Oldfield Partners, which owns easyJet shares, said a fresh offer would have to be “significantly higher” than what was rejected. Reuters
The board said keeping access tight could help get a “more attractive proposal,” but stuck to worries over “ownership structure and deliverability”. IG’s Chris Beauchamp told the Guardian the longer deadline looked like a sign “some kind of deal is doable”. The Guardian
easyJet says this debate goes beyond fares right now. In May, the company put out numbers showing £4.7 billion in liquidity, net cash at £434 million, and £5.0 billion in owned assets. First-half load factor came in at 90%, passengers grew 6%, and easyJet holidays saw customers jump 22%.
| easyJet metric | Latest reported figure | Investor read |
|---|---|---|
| Liquidity | £4.7 bln | Gives balance sheet headroom |
| Net cash | £434 mln | Debt side looks light |
| Owned assets book value | £5.0 bln | Assets fuel bid arguments |
| H1 load factor | 90% | Shows demand was stable in H1 |
| Holidays customer growth | 22% | This unit boosts margins |
easyJet CEO Kenton Jarvis said in the May results that the airline was “well placed to manage the current environment” and saw “no disruption to fuel supply”. But in the same update, Jarvis warned the second half would see higher fuel costs and less certainty on customer demand linked to the Middle East conflict.
Castlelake faces a 5 p.m. deadline on July 5 to either put forward a binding bid or step back, according to .
