Key Takeaways
- • Shareholders of easyJet approved Apollo's £5.7bn ($7.6bn) takeover on November 11, with 97.07% of votes cast in favor at the court meeting and 96.67% at the general meeting.
- • Apollo is paying £7.15 per share in cash, an 81% premium to the pre-bidding price in late May, after Castlelake's £6.25 offer was rejected in June.
- • Founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou and family (about 15.3%) are rolling their stake into the new private parent, and Apollo's funds will hold no more than 49.9% of it.
- • easyJet reported £665MM headline profit before tax in fiscal 2025 and £602MM net cash, but its 7% EBIT margin trails Ryanair's 15.3%, which is the gap Apollo is expected to target.
- • The deal is expected to close by the end of March 2027, ending more than 25 years of London Stock Exchange listing.
Summary
Shareholders approved Apollo's £5.7bn ($7.6bn) takeover of easyJet on November 11, with 97.07% of votes cast in favor at the court meeting and 96.67% at the general meeting. Apollo is paying £7.15 per share in cash, a premium of about 81% to where the stock traded before bidding began in late May. Castlelake opened the tender with a £6.25 offer in June, which was rejected. Apollo reached terms on July 10 and the board recommended the offer on August 6. The purchase is funded with Apollo equity and debt that Barclays said it was highly confident it could arrange.
To satisfy European ownership rules, easyJet suspended voting rights on 233.9 million shares held by non-EU investors. Founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou and his family, who hold about 15.3%, are rolling their stake into the new private parent rather than selling. Headquarters will remain in the UK, along with air operator certificates in the UK, Austria and Switzerland. Completion is expected by the end of March 2027.
Apollo said in its July 10 statement that it "believes in easyJet's existing strategy," citing bigger aircraft, better ancillary and loyalty revenue, and scaling holidays into a structurally differentiated earnings stream. According to the publication, easyJet made £665MM in headline profit before tax in fiscal 2025, its third straight year of growth, with net cash of £602MM. easyJet Holidays contributed £250MM of that profit, and new targets set £450MM by 2030. The margin gap is the central issue: easyJet's EBIT of £703MM on £10.11bn revenue works out to roughly 7%, versus 15.3% for Ryanair in its fiscal year to March 2026. Analysts quoted by Travel Weekly put staffing at about 54 per aircraft at easyJet versus 43 at Ryanair.
The article places the deal in the context of private equity's mixed record in travel, citing Blackstone's Hilton investment, Apollo's earlier Sun Country purchase, Indigo Partners' Frontier deal, and Bain Capital's Virgin Australia turnaround as value-creating examples, and Greybull Capital's Monarch acquisition as a failure. The author argues that easyJet more closely resembles the successful group, though he flags risks from the acquisition debt and the ongoing fuel cost shock. The author speculates that easyJet may evolve toward a holiday-led model closer to Jet2 than to Ryanair, but this is the author's own view and not a stated plan from Apollo.
To satisfy European ownership rules, easyJet suspended voting rights on 233.9 million shares held by non-EU investors. Founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou and his family, who hold about 15.3%, are rolling their stake into the new private parent rather than selling. Headquarters will remain in the UK, along with air operator certificates in the UK, Austria and Switzerland. Completion is expected by the end of March 2027.
Apollo said in its July 10 statement that it "believes in easyJet's existing strategy," citing bigger aircraft, better ancillary and loyalty revenue, and scaling holidays into a structurally differentiated earnings stream. According to the publication, easyJet made £665MM in headline profit before tax in fiscal 2025, its third straight year of growth, with net cash of £602MM. easyJet Holidays contributed £250MM of that profit, and new targets set £450MM by 2030. The margin gap is the central issue: easyJet's EBIT of £703MM on £10.11bn revenue works out to roughly 7%, versus 15.3% for Ryanair in its fiscal year to March 2026. Analysts quoted by Travel Weekly put staffing at about 54 per aircraft at easyJet versus 43 at Ryanair.
The article places the deal in the context of private equity's mixed record in travel, citing Blackstone's Hilton investment, Apollo's earlier Sun Country purchase, Indigo Partners' Frontier deal, and Bain Capital's Virgin Australia turnaround as value-creating examples, and Greybull Capital's Monarch acquisition as a failure. The author argues that easyJet more closely resembles the successful group, though he flags risks from the acquisition debt and the ongoing fuel cost shock. The author speculates that easyJet may evolve toward a holiday-led model closer to Jet2 than to Ryanair, but this is the author's own view and not a stated plan from Apollo.
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