Ryanair has extended for a second time the deadline for Aer Lingus shareholders to accept its takeover offer after investors with less than 1 per cent of the carrier accepted its bid.
"Ryanair announces that, as at 3.00pm on 4 December, valid acceptances of the offer had been received in respect of 4,963,908 Aer Lingus shares (representing approximately 0.928 per cent of the issued share capital)," it said today.
The bid, which values Aer Lingus at €1.48 billion (£1 billion), is widely expected to fail given intense opposition from major shareholders, including the Government with 25 per cent and current and former Aer Lingus staff with 12.6 per cent.
Ryanair said shareholders now had until 1pm on Friday, December 22nd, to accept the €2.80 per share offer.
Ryanair said no acceptances of the offer have been received from persons acting in concert with Ryanair.
Prior to the start of the offer period, Ryanair, acting through its wholly owned subsidiary, Coinside Limited, held 84,775,000 Aer Lingus shares representing 16.03 per cent of the issued share capital.
Meanwhile, Ryanair said today it carried 3.16 million passengers in November or 15 per cent more than in the same month last year but its planes were not as full as in 2005.
Ryanair said its load factor - a measure of how well it is filling seats - was 79 per cent last month versus 81 per cent in November last year.