Fastjet PLC recently announced that its largest shareholder, Lonrho Ltd., had sold its entire stake in the budget airline for about GBP1.49 million (USD2.38 million). Reuters said Lonrho sold around 52.4 million shares in the African carrier for GBX2.85 per share. It was a 17% discount of Fastjet's closing price on Wednesday.
Fastjet's London Stock Exchange-listed stock declined by 12% to GBX3.00 on Thursday, the report said.
A Bloomberg profile said Lonrho is an energy, agriculture and minerals conglomerate based in London and operates in Africa. It owned 11.27% of the African airline as of last month, based on Thomson Reuters data. Swiss billionaire Thomas Schmidheiny and Swiss investor Rainer-Marc Frey were looking into acquiring the conglomerate, Reuters said, citing a statement Lonrho made in May.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Fastjet is partly owned by Easyjet billionaire Stelios Haji-Ioannou. The low-cost African carrier is planning to operate in Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Angola, Reuters said.
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