easyJet chairman replies to Stelios claims
01.02.12
Sir Michael Rake, the chairman of easyJet, has hit back at the ‘increasingly personal’ attacks on the airline's board by its founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, denying its directors are riding the ‘gravy train’. In an increasingly bitter exchange, Sir Stelios then responded to Sir Michael's comments, saying: ‘I will never again meet this man in a room because he re-writes history.’
Sir Stelios recently criticised the airline's board over a pay deal that could award ten executives shares worth £8m over the next three years, based what he called ‘phoney’ bonus calculations. He accused directors of treating the company as their ‘personal piggy bank’, and has tabled a motion to oppose the remuneration report at easyJet's AGM later this month.
In a speech at the airline’s investor day yesterday, Sir Michael said: ‘Stelios and easyGroup have chosen to continuously attack the company in various different ways and increasingly personalise those attacks on individuals in the company,’
He said easyJet had picked the measure of Return on Capital Employed (to calculate the executive bonuses) as ‘most easily measured’ but would, from now on, show these on ‘on all three bases’.He said that easyJet ‘outperformed most of its traditional competitors’ on the three measures. Sir Stelios was unimpressed, saying it was ‘designed to confuse the poor investors in this company for the benefit of a handful of highly paid executives’.
Sir Michael also rejected Sir Stelios’s claim that a ‘gravy train of £180m free shares’ had been issued over the last decade. He said: ‘We will publish detailed information showing that 75 percent of these were pre-flotation shares that were allocated whilst Stelios was chairman.’
To book luton airport hotels or luton airport parking at the lowest price, click on these links to two great luton airport car parking and luton airport hotel price comparison pages.
