The long-running EasyJet Castlelake takeover bid moved decisively forward on Sunday, with the two sides announcing an agreement in principle on a proposal worth £6.90 per share, valuing the Luton-based carrier at approximately £5.2 billion.
It is not a done deal. Castlelake must still secure regulatory clearances and the transaction approvals required to proceed, and any firm offer would need to pass a shareholder vote. The board has until 17:00 BST on 3 August to either announce a firm intention to make an offer or walk away.
Five Rejected Bids, One Agreement: How the EasyJet Castlelake Takeover Bid Got Here
EasyJet‘s board had previously rejected four proposals from Castlelake, pitched at £6.50, £5.60, £6.00, and £6.25 per share. The airline publicly accused the Minneapolis-based firm of trying to buy it ‘on the cheap.’ Sunday’s agreement, at £6.90, is the figure that finally moved the board.
For context on how far the price has travelled: Reuters reports that Castlelake’s earlier £6.25-per-share proposal represented a premium of approximately 57% to EasyJet’s share price of £3.94 on 29 May 2026, the trading day before Castlelake publicly disclosed its interest. The £6.90 agreed price compares to a Friday close of £5.58.
Castlelake first revealed it was considering a possible offer on 30 May 2026, according to Bloomberg Law, cautioning at the time that no approach had yet been made to the board and no offer might materialise. Five bids later, that caution looks like understatement.
The Regulatory Problem That Could Still Kill the Deal
The central complication is structural. EasyJet is a European airline, and EU rules require it to be at least 51% owned by European entities. Castlelake is an American investment firm. The company has outlined how it intends to comply with that requirement, but the path remains untested and the deadline is tight.
EasyJet’s board was careful in its language on Sunday. The financial terms of the proposed offer ‘are at a value that the Board would be minded to recommend to easyJet shareholders,’ it said, but only should a firm offer actually be made. Minded to recommend is not the same as recommending.
Castlelake currently holds a stake of approximately 2.14% in EasyJet through the funds it manages. Reuters puts the firm’s assets under management at approximately $38 billion, though EasyJet’s own announcement cited $36 billion; the discrepancy likely reflects different or more recent disclosure periods. Reuters also reports that Castlelake has invested more than $24 billion in aviation since 2005, which makes EasyJet a logical fit for a firm that clearly knows the sector.
The bid is backed by former Malaysia Airlines chief executive Peter Bellew, Reuters reports, a detail that gives the consortium at least some operational credibility behind the financial firepower.
EasyJet has not been having an easy run. Before Castlelake disclosed its interest in June, the airline’s stock had fallen more than 30% over the prior year, with management attributing some of that weakness to the impact of the US-Israel conflict with Iran on travel demand. The carrier employs more than 19,000 people and operates around 1,200 routes across 35 European countries.
Deutsche Bank upgraded EasyJet to ‘hold’ from ‘sell’ and raised its price target to 540p from 340p amid the focus on Castlelake’s stake, according to Investing.com. Even the revised target sits well below the agreed £6.90 proposal price, which tells you something about how much of the move the market attributes purely to bid speculation rather than underlying value.
The 3 August deadline is the next binary moment. If Castlelake announces a firm intention to make an offer, the EasyJet board has said it would be minded to recommend acceptance. If it walks away, a share price that has been trading largely on takeover hope has a long way to fall back to fundamentals.
