For a few days, easyJet knew who was buying it. On July 5, the board of Britain’s second-biggest budget airline said it was minded to recommend a fifth proposal from Castlelake, the US investment firm, at 690 pence a share. Then, on Friday, Apollo Global Management gatecrashed the whole thing with 715 pence in cash — £7.15 a share, valuing easyJet at roughly £5.7 billion, about $7.7 billion. Within hours the board reversed, saying it was “no longer minded to recommend” the Castlelake deal and would instead be inclined to back Apollo. The stock, which had been drifting near the agreed price, jumped as much as 14%.
The raise itself is small — Apollo’s 715p is only about 3.6% above Castlelake’s 690p. The number that matters is the other one: 715p is an 81% premium to easyJet’s 394p close on May 28, the last trading day before the offer period opened. Whoever wins is paying up enormously for an airline the public market had been valuing, just weeks earlier, as if cheap European flying were a business in decline. Apollo sweetened its bid with a “stub equity” alternative, letting existing holders roll their shares into the private vehicle rather than cash out — a signal it sees upside it wants long-term owners to stay for.
Now it’s an auction on a clock. Under UK takeover rules, each side faces a “put up or shut up” deadline: Castlelake must firm up its offer or walk by August 3, Apollo by August 7. And there is a complication bigger than price. EU law requires airlines flying routes inside the bloc to be majority-owned and effectively controlled by EU nationals — and both bidders are American. Apollo has said it will “take all necessary measures” to satisfy those ownership rules and preserve the easyJet brand. That pledge, not the pennies per share, may decide whether the deal can actually get off the ground.
Our take: The bidding war is the story. An airline that couldn’t win the market’s respect in May is the object of a two-fund tug-of-war in July — a near-perfect illustration of what private equity’s cash mountain is hunting for: unloved, cash-generative, hard-asset businesses trading below what a patient owner will pay. The 3.6% gap between the two bids says Castlelake isn’t necessarily beaten; the 81% premium says the real repricing has already happened, and shareholders are the clean winners either way. The harder contest is regulatory. Two US funds fighting over a European carrier run straight into Brussels’ ownership rules, and the winner won’t be whoever waves the biggest check — it’ll be whoever can prove it can legally hold the thing. Watch the structure, not just the price.
It also fits a pattern we’ve tracked all year. 2026 is on pace to be the biggest year for M&A on record, powered by fewer but far larger, increasingly cross-border bets. It rhymes with the ownership reshuffle sweeping European assets — from Xavier Niel seizing the top of Vodafone’s share register to Prologis chasing Segro’s warehouses — where American and opportunistic capital keeps pressing on undervalued European infrastructure. easyJet is simply the version with wings.
What to watch
- The put-up-or-shut-up dates. Castlelake has until August 3, Apollo until August 7, to table a firm offer or walk away. Silence from either is the tell.
- A Castlelake counter. A 3.6% gap is nothing to a fund that already made five proposals. Anything above 715p turns this into a genuine auction.
- The EU ownership test. Intra-EU flying demands EU control. How Apollo structures ownership — and whether Brussels accepts it — matters more than the headline price.
- Stub-equity take-up. If large holders roll into Apollo’s vehicle instead of cashing out, that’s their vote on where the value goes next.