LONDON (Reuters) -Shares in budget airline easyJet jumped as much as 11.5% on Tuesday, with traders pointing to an Italian media report of possible bid interest from global container shipping company MSC.
“MSC denies any involvement in this matter,” a spokesperson for the Mediterranean Shipping Company said in a statement to Reuters about the report in Corriere della Sera daily.
EasyJet declined to comment on the report, which cited unnamed sources as saying that MSC could jointly bid with an investment fund for either a stake or full control of the airliner but that evaluations were preliminary.
The airliner’s shares pared some of their earlier rise and were last up 3% on the day at 478.9 pence. They hit a session high of 517.2 pence, briefly headed for their largest one-day rise since early 2023.
Traded volumes in the first two hours of the London session were greater than those for the past three full trading days combined, at around 7.8 million shares, according to LSEG data
EasyJet’s shares are down 14% so far this year, compared with a 1.4% fall in a European index of travel and leisure stocks.
In 2022, Geneva-headquartered MSC, controlled by the Aponte family, teamed up with Lufthansa on a potential bid for Alitalia successor ITA Airways.
MSC, which has freight and logistics and passenger divisions – with brands including MSC Cruises and Grandi Navi Veloci – had aimed to create cost savings and efficiencies with ITA in both the cargo and passenger businesses.
“While the industrial logic in a combination between MSC and Europe’s second-largest point to point airline is not obvious to us, could there be a break-up play?” said Bernstein analyst Alex Irving in a note Tuesday.
(Reporting by Amanda Cooper and Joice Alves in London and Elvira Pollina in Milan; Editing by Adam Jourdan, Kirsten Donovan, Anousha Sakoui)
