Budget airline EasyJet has rejected a third takeover proposal from its US suitor ahead of a deadline on Friday for a firm offer.
Investment fund Castlelake today revealed that it approached the board in a letter on Saturday with a revised indicative price of 625p per share in cash, valuing the company at £4.74 billion.
As with the second proposal, Castlelake expected that this latest proposition “would elicit prompt engagement from the easyJet board”. However, the easyJet board rejected the proposal yesterday.
In a statement this morning, Castlelake said that given the EasyJet board’s “unwillingness to engage meaningfully”, it is announcing this third proposal to enable easyJet shareholders “to consider its merits” ahead of a takeover panel deadline of 5pm on Friday to declare its firm intentions.
Shares in the budget airline soared by around 12% after American investment fund Castlelake confirmed at the beginning of June that it is considering a possible offer.
The first proposal on 12 June was worth 560p and this was raised on 17 June to 600p. The latest proposal represents a premium of approximately 59% to the easyJet share price of 394.2p per share as at the close of business on 28 May, being the last day before Castlelake’s interest in easyJet became public.
However, a potential bidding war is losing its momentum following comments from a rival airline that a takeover would be difficult to pull off.
Luis Gallego, the chief executive of IAG, British Airways’ parent group, has said that the European Union’s rigid competition framework renders any imminent bid practically non-viable
Moonpig
Shares in online greetings card company Moonpig are still trading below its IPO price. Like a lot of pandemic winners, Moonpig has struggled in a post-Covid world, even if its operational and financial performance has stacked up better than its share price showing, say analysts at AJ Bell.
While its core cards business has performed robustly, and benefited from increasing subscriptions for its ‘plus’ service which offers perks and discounts, selling experiences has not been so successful.
Moonpig, which reports full-year figures on Thursday, has had more luck shifting ancillary items like flowers and chocolates – using AI to pitch personalised options to customers. The business is also very cash generative and benefits from having materially lower costs than its bricks and mortar peers.
New CEO Catherine Faiers will be expected to outline her vision for the business and how she hopes to achieve future growth – with obvious levers being an improvement in the experiences business and international growth, particularly in the US.
Selling an increasing volume of gifts on top of cards is likely to remain an important component of the strategy. Investors will be wary of any signs the ‘attach rate’ – or in other words how many people are including a gift item when buying a card – is slipping to match depressed levels of consumer sentiment.
DIARY
Monday 22 June
- Full-year results from Babcock
Tuesday 23 June
- Full-year results from Gear4Music, Iomart, Severfield and Telecom Plus
- Peter Murrell, former CEO of the SNP, to be sentenced after admitting embezzlement
Wednesday 24 June
- Full-year results from Berkeley and ProCook
Thursday 25 June
- Full-year results from Halfords, Moonpig, Volex and Wise
- Pre-close trading statement from Serco
Friday 26 June
- Deadline for Castlelake to declare intentions towards EasyJet
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