Ryanair Bids €694 Million for Aer Lingus

Ryanair wants to take over Aer Lingus...and is putting its money where its mouth is (Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary pictured)

Ryanair today has made a formal bid to take control of its Irish rival airline Aer Lingus.

Ryanair, who already owns 29.8 percent of Aer Lingus, submitted a bid of €694 million (roughly $1 billion U.S.) to its shareholders to gain a controlling interest of its chief competitor, which is currently run by the Irish government.

European Union regulators blocked Ryanair’s bid for Aer Lingus in 2007, saying they would have a monopoly in the Dublin market of over 80 percent.

“In six years as a public company, Aer Lingus has failed to deliver value,” Ryanair chief executive officer Michael O’Leary claimed in a letter accompanying the bid document.

At current trading, Aer Lingus is worth roughly €568 million.

O’Leary pledged to lift Aer Lingus’s annual passenger total to 14 million over five years from 9.5 million today and said his company would invest in expanding transatlantic flights.

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