LONDON, July 3, 2026, 00:01 BST
- easyJet last traded at 558p, down 0.32%; the FTSE 250 was up 0.38%.
- The stock sits 92p below Castlelake’s rejected 650p offer, a roughly £697 million equity-value gap.
- More than a dozen Rule 8-related notices hit the tape on July 2, with large holders and banks disclosing positions around 560p.
- Castlelake has until 5 p.m. London time on July 5 to make a firm bid or walk away.
easyJet plc (LON:EZJ) is priced less like a clean cash takeover and more like a risk trade before Castlelake’s Sunday deadline. The stock last traded at 558p on Thursday, down 0.32%, while the FTSE 250 rose 0.38%; it was still 92p below Castlelake’s rejected 650p-a-share proposal.
Using the reported 758.01 million shares in issue, that leaves about £697 million between easyJet’s close and Castlelake’s last proposal. The £7 level Reuters said investors had hoped to get would value the group at about £5.31 billion, £1.08 billion above the close.
| Price test | Pence per share | Implied equity value | Gap to 558p close |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thursday close | 558p | £4.23 billion | — |
| Castlelake fourth proposal | 650p | £4.93 billion | +92p, or about £697 million |
| £7 level cited by Reuters | 700p | £5.31 billion | +142p, or about £1.08 billion |
The gap matters because it sets the market’s view of deal risk in cash terms. It is too wide to read as a clean auction. Castlelake has until 5 p.m. London time on July 5, and the bidder’s own announcement said there could be no certainty that a firm offer would be made.
Thursday’s filings help explain the caution. Investegate listed 13 easyJet Rule 8-related notices on July 2, and Castlelake’s RNS repeats that 1% holders and relevant traders must disclose positions under the Takeover Code.
| Discloser | Interest disclosed | Short position | Dealing noted |
|---|---|---|---|
| UBS Asset Management | 25.19 million shares, 3.32% | None disclosed | Bought 1,197 shares at £5.598 |
| BlackRock Group | 30.53 million shares, 4.02% | 5.31 million shares, 0.70% | Bought and sold shares at £5.598 |
| Invesco Ltd | 20.87 million shares, 2.75% | None shown | Sold 442,417 shares at £5.60 |
| Barclays PLC | 21.13 million shares, 2.79% | 21.10 million shares, 2.78% | Reported multiple trades around £5.60 |
| AQR Capital Management | 14.33 million shares, 1.89% | 2.95 million shares, 0.38% | Reported equity-swap dealings around £5.60 |
Those filings do not say whether a deal will happen. They do show where risk money changed hands: around £5.60, the same area as the closing price, not near the 650p bid.
Goodbody Stockbrokers analyst Dudley Shanley told Reuters: “The narrative has definitively changed.” Samuel Ziff, a portfolio manager at easyJet investor Oldfield Partners, said a new bid would need to be “significantly higher”. Reuters
Castlelake is trying to solve more than price. Its proposed vehicle would be 49% owned by Castlelake and co-investors including Brookfield Asset Management NYSE:BAM, with 51% owned by EU nationals Peter Bellew and Mark Breen. That structure is aimed at EU airline rules requiring majority EU ownership and control.
Castlelake said it manages about $38 billion and has invested more than $24 billion in aviation since 2005. The aviation record matters because easyJet’s asset base is part of the bid case: the airline reported £5.0 billion book value of owned assets, £4.7 billion of liquidity and £434 million of adjusted net cash at the March half-year.
The stand-alone figures cut both ways. easyJet reported a £552 million H1 pretax loss, hit by £25 million of fuel costs and £32 million of legal provisions. H1 revenue was £3.95 billion, passenger growth was 6%, load factor rose 2 percentage points to 90%, and the holidays unit made £61 million headline pretax profit.
easyJet’s next scheduled company event is Q3 results on July 23; its May update said H2 had seen strong late bookings but lower forward visibility from the Middle East conflict.
