{"id":512030,"date":"2026-07-06T07:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T07:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/512030\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T07:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T07:47:14","slug":"budget-carrier-easyjet-accepts-us-firms-beefed-up-takeover-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/512030\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget carrier EasyJet accepts US firm\u2019s beefed-up takeover bid"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to the Financial Times, Castlelake is a major player in aircraft leasing<\/a>, with a fleet of 375 planes rented out to airlines including Etihad, Qantas<\/a>, Air India Express, Frontier and Viva.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Castlelake acquired around 32% of Scandinavian airline SAS. Air France-KLM is in the process of buying back that stake.<\/p>\n

Despite rebuffing the early offers, EasyJet opened the door to talks on June 25, agreeing to give the US fund access to commercial information in the hope of securing a more attractive proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cCastlelake has emphasised its tremendous respect for EasyJet and its people, with its intention to support its future growth and transformation to a stronger, more resilient European airline,\u201d the carrier said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Castlelake said \u201cthere can be no certainty that any firm offer will be made\u201d by the August 3 deadline.<\/p>\n

But it added: \u201cCastlelake is supportive of EasyJet\u2019s fleet modernisation programme, which it regards as central to the company\u2019s long-term competitiveness, efficiency and sustainability objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

EasyJet shortly before Christmas 2023 confirmed a firm order for 157 additional Airbus A320neo aircraft. <\/p>\n

Airbus at the time said EasyJet also modified an existing order for 35 A320neos into the larger A321neo.<\/p>\n

EasyJet operates an all-Airbus, narrowbody fleet.<\/p>\n

The airline\u2019s website said its fleet currently comprised 126 A319s, 168 A320ceos, 20 of the A320neo aircraft, and four A321neos.<\/p>\n

In May, EasyJet reported losses deepened by 27% in the first half of the financial year to \u00a3377 million ($883m) as the US-Iran conflict sent fuel prices soaring and upended travel plans.<\/p>\n

The company warned that the second half of the year would also be affected, though chief executive Kenton Jarvis said the airline was \u201cwell placed\u201d to ride out the turbulence.<\/p>\n

Budget rival Ryanair, by contrast, enjoyed a profit jump of 35% on its full-year return, though it too warned of problems ahead caused by the Middle East war.<\/p>\n

– AFP<\/p>\n

Additional reporting: NZ Herald<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to the Financial Times, Castlelake is a major player in aircraft leasing, with a fleet of 375…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[254711,197924,74,19064,4376,254709,1040,8613,14801,11357,138,72975,254710,1656,26335,1137,1138,25337,8455,130,111,139,69,103343,1136,17159,20488,312,26592,131,3040,167327],"class_list":["post-512030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-117b","tag-accepts","tag-after","tag-agreement","tag-airline","tag-beefedup","tag-bid","tag-billion","tag-british","tag-budget","tag-business","tag-carrier","tag-castlelake","tag-company","tag-easyjet","tag-equity","tag-firm","tag-firms","tag-getting","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-principle","tag-private","tag-proposal","tag-reached","tag-says","tag-takeover","tag-than","tag-us","tag-valuing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}