Ryanair Says It’s Open to Selling Stake in Aer Lingus

LONDON - Ryanair, the European budget airline, said Tuesday that it would be open to selling its stake in Aer Lingus amid pressure from competition regulators, a step that would end a controversial investment that started in 2006.

Ryanair said it would sell its 29 percent stake in Aer Lingus to any European company that makes a successful bid for more than half of the airline. The decision comes ahead of a final report by the Competition Commission in Britain, set to be published in August, which is likely to criticize Ryanair’s Aer Lingus holding.

But some analysts said Ryanair’s announcement might be no more than another gimmick in its battle with competition authorities over its investment in Aer Lingus and several failed attempts to buy the rest of the airline.

“We would be surprised if another E.U. airline takes the bait,” analysts at Investec wrote in a note to investors. “It is a bold move as it assumes that no other airline will take the bait and get involved in this complicated, drawn-out merger and acquisition battle.”

The step is the latest in a long saga that started when Ryanair built its stake in Aer Lingus in 2006. During the last six years, Ryanair has made three unsolicited offers for Aer Lingus, which is also 25 percent owned by the Irish government. Aer Lingus is attractive for Ryanair because of its valuable takeoff and landing slots at airports like Heathrow in London.

The European Commission blocked Ryanair’s latest bid for Aer Lingus, worth nearly 700 million euros ($922 million), in February after a six-month review. An offer by Ryanair to sell some routes between Ireland, Britain and continental Europe was not enough to dispel competition concerns by the European regulators.

Ryanair is continuing to appeal the commission’s decision at the European Court of Justice, but that process could drag on for years. In the meantime, the Irish government has been putting off a sale of its holding, fearing the shares could be snapped up by Ryanair.

Ryanair said Tuesday that its pledge to sell its Aer Lingus stake to any successful bidder for most of Aer Lingus was a remedy that “unconditionally removes any ability by Ryanair to block any future takeover of Aer Lingus by another E.U. airline.”

The Competition Commission in Britain said in May that Ryanair’s minority stake reduced competition because it kept other European airlines from buying Aer Lingus. Ryanair said on Tuesday that the agency’s concerns were “unfounded and invented” and its conclusions “manifestly false.” A spokeswoman for the competition regulator said it was considering Ryanair’s announcement and would take it into consideration but was rejecting the airline’s criticism.

Ryanair, based in Dublin, accused senior executives at the competition commission of “inventing new and fantastical ‘concerns’ in order to justify their apparently premeditated and biased ‘thinking’ that Ryanair should be forced to sell down this 6.5 year old minority stake.”

The airline, Europe’s largest airline by number of passengers, said it had decided to sell the stake to show that the commission’s concerns were unfounded and that it was possible for another airline to buy Aer Lingus. A spokesman for Aer Lingus declined to comment. Ryanair’s shares fell 3 percent in London on Tuesday while shares in Aer Lingus were little changed .

Nicola Clark contributed reporting from Paris.