The shares of budget airline easyJet rose as much as 11,5% on Tuesday. Traders cited an Italian media report about possible bid interest by global container shipping company MSC. In a statement, a Mediterranean Shipping Company spokesperson denied any involvement in the matter. The report appeared in the Corriere della sera newspaper.

EasyJet refused to comment on a report citing unnamed sources that said MSC and an investment fund could bid jointly for a stake in the airliner or for full control, but that the evaluations were still preliminary. The shares of the airliner pared their initial rise, and ended up at 478.9p for a 3% gain on the day. The shares briefly reached a high of 517.2p, heading for their biggest one-day gain since early 2023.

According to LSEG, the trading volume in the first two-hour session of London was greater than the combined volumes for the previous three full trading days, with around 7.8 millions shares.

EasyJet shares have fallen 14% this year compared to a European travel and leisure index that has dropped 1.4%. MSC, a Geneva-based company controlled by the Aponte Family, teamed with Lufthansa in 2022 to make a bid for Alitalia's successor ITA Airways.

MSC has both freight and passenger divisions, with brands such as MSC Cruises and Grandi Navi Veloci. It aimed to achieve cost savings and efficiencies in the passenger and cargo businesses with ITA. While the industrial logic of a merger between MSC's and Europe's largest point-to-point airline is not clear to us, there could be a play to break up MSC? In a note published on Tuesday, Bernstein analyst Alex Irving said that the combination between MSC and Europe's second-largest point to point airline was not logical. Reporting by Amanda Cooper in London, Elvira pollina in Milan, and Adam Jourdan in New York; editing by Kirby Donovan, Anousha Saoui, and Adam Jourdan

(source: Reuters)