EasyJet investors back £5.7bn takeover by Apollo

EasyJet shareholders have given the green light to the airline’s £5.7 billion private equity takeover in a move paving the way for it to fall into US hands.

The Luton-based carrier said 97.07% of shareholders voted in favour of the takeover by US investment group Apollo at a meeting of investors on Wednesday, with 2.93% voting against.

EasyJet said the deal is set to complete by the end of March next year.

Its board agreed in August to a takeover for 715p a share by US firm Apollo, which also owns firms such as Wagamama-owner The Restaurant Group.

The deal will mark the end of more than 26 years on the London stock market and see easyJet fall into US ownership.

Apollo secured the deal after winning in a takeover tussle with US investment firm Castlelake.

Castlelake had previously made a £5.5 billion, or 690p a share, proposal to buy easyJet, but walked away from the bidding war in August.

Of the deal, easyJet’s chief executive Kenton Jarvis said it is now “over to the regulators” and that his company is “still anticipating the whole transaction closing in Q1 2027”.

Speaking at the Airlines 2026 event in Westminster on Wednesday, Mr Jarvis added: “It’s a very good thing for the passengers – that we’ve obviously spoken to Apollo and it’s clear that they support the strategy that we have and see great opportunities to accelerate it and when we think about our strategy and our purpose of making low-cost travel easy, affordable, and accessible for as many people as possible, then that will remain the purpose of easyJet, and we will look to provide the products and the services that our customers value.

“We’re very excited about it. We think it’s good for the future of the company.”

Asked whether the deal constitutes an “injection of cash into the airline that will transform the passenger experience”, Mr Jarvis said: “We have a lot of things that we’re working on for the strategy and a lot of things that are coming along.

“We are at the start of our journey of modernising the fleet so we have a very strong and flexible order book with Airbus, and we’ll be bringing in A320 and A321neo aircraft and they’ll replace our older, smaller, less fuel-efficient aircraft in the fleet, like the 80 A319s that we have, and that gives great benefits in terms of not only the environment and the carbon footprint, but also the cost of operating those aircraft and then that will give good value to the customer.

“We will continue to invest and grow our holidays company.”

Mr Jarvis added that easyJet will launch a loyalty programme next year.

EasyJet was founded by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in 1995 to offer a low-cost alternative to British Airways and it has since expanded to be one of the largest networks across Europe.

It listed on the London Stock Exchange on November 22, 2000.

Sir Stelios and his family, who own just over 15% of the business, have given the takeover their support.