easyJet (AO) | Hold | EU might amend takeover rules in the airline industry

Research evidence excerpt

easyJet (AO) | Hold | EU might amend takeover rules in the airline industry

News comment

Release date: 22 July 2026

Marc Zeck, CFA

Equity Research Analyst

+ 49 69 7569 6323

mzeck@keplercheuvreux.com

HoldeasyJet

United Kingdom | Airlines & airports MCap: GBP5.0bn

Target Price: 715.00p Bloomberg: EZJ LN Reuters: EZJ.L

Current Price: 663.40p Free float 83%

Up/downside: 7.8% Avg. daily volume (GBPm) 5,019.3

YTD abs performance 29.9% Market data: 21 July 2026

52-week high/low (GBP) 680.00/339.70

EU might amend takeover rules in the airline industry

Key points:

According to an article by Reuters, the EU is preparing a review of airline ownership rules. The article explicitly cites an EU official

who states that the move aims to prevent foreign investors from gaining effective control of carriers.

The review will allegedly only take place in autumn, which might jeopardise any M&A action before that, unless non-EU investors

are bold enough to go ahead, not knowing what the ultimate rules will be.

While the move won't block non-EU investors from taking a share in an EU airline, it will complicate M&A action as it implicitly

encourages the participation of another EU airline, which will then require much tighter antitrust investigations on airport slot

ownership and market shares.

We previously questioned the setup of Castlelake's bid for easyJet, which included two private EU citizens in an effort to satisfy

existing EU regulations. We have not heard yet from Apollo about the future ownership structure of easyJet, which led us to

believe that they figured something out, given that they only submitted a bid after learning about Castlelake's bid. In hindsight,

that might have been an overly optimistic assumption.