Castlelake To Buy EasyJet For $7.3+ Billion: What's The Real Motive, Though?

The bigger driver could be that the UK stock market is so undervalued compared to the U.S. that many companies are being acquired at low valuations. Easyjet would seem to be another victim of that.

Copy paste of Elliot Southwest deal? Easyjet underperforms compared to its competition, its costs have grown from its glory days (similar to WN), and in the eyes of an activist investor ought to be far more profitable considering the markets it has a stronghold on.

US venture capitalist have always been excellent reading financial reports and analysing stock market performance. But have never understood government regulation, which is very strong in Europe. I guess they will try to sell slots, but who wants to buy them at wholesale quantity? Yes, slots at airports like LGW or GVA are scarce and achieve high prices. The few slots which occasionally become available are generally bought by long-haul airlines who want to start one or two daily flights. But if the dozens of slots become available, I don't see an immediate buyer for all of them. It's not that Ryanair is on the doorsteps, the prefer rural cheap airports. And legacy carriers already have their slots.

Hey Ben, it's irrelevant to this article, but.. JAL is discontinuing NRT-ORD service right after AA launch it.
Source : https://sky-budget.com/2026/07/06/jal-close-nrt-ord/

If AF/KLM does participate in the acquisition, might EasyJet participate in the Flying Blue loyalty program?

I don't think AF/KL is interested in maintaining EasyJet in its current form. More likely they'd snap up the slots and integrate it into Transavia.

You need only look at where Easyjet has its largest bases to see there is huge value in its assets: LGW MAN BRS GVA LTN MXP BER LYS. A lot of its network is at major airports so there is huge opportunity to grow any airline that gets involved with Easyjet.

I think you captured the "why" in your article when you stated Easyjet hasn't been hugely profitable.

Castlelake is a PE firm. They are in it to grow value. They are buying low and feel they can grow the profitability of the business.

Very simple, this is a private equity firm. They'll mortgage all the assets, pull the cash out of the business, and then dump what's left of easyJet onto the public markets. Same as just happened with Southwest. There is a shortage of juicy targets in the US so private equity is taking the same model of late capitalism to Europe.

When I read this, I immediately thought of what Elliott (mis)Management did to Southwest. Not good for passengers.

Personally i would make EJ more efficient and then sell it off to a non-european airline. EJ has attractive slots on important european airports and could work as a feeder airline for a asian, american or middle eastern airline wanting to establish a firm position in europe.

A moderate chunk of value in EasyJet is its order book and guaranteed delivery flow. It would make sense for a new, well funded airline, in need of shiny new hardware, to stage this acquisition through a third party apparently at arms length, thus accessing the order book and avoiding the competition regulators. Looking at you Riyadh Air ...

Castlelake requires an European partner. That partner will be MSC (cruises specifically)
They will sell all the planes, retain only the routes they need for the Cruise business, sell the rest of slots. Possibly acquire also Virgin Atlantic for another 1Bn. Consolidate the business in Gatwick - bring the non European tourists into Gatwick with the Virgin flights and fly them to the cruises (Barcelona, Venice etc) with the EasyJet

EasyJet backs $7.65 billion Apollo bid over Castlelake offer - https://www.reuters.com/business/apollo-trumps-castlelake-with-765-billion-easyjet-bid-2026-07-10/