SIR MICHAEL Rake, the chairman of the airline easyJet, has hit back at the “increasingly personal” attacks on the company by its founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, denying its directors are riding the “gravy train”.
In a further souring of relations between easyJet and its 38 per cent shareholder, Stelios responded last night: “I will never again meet this man in a room because he re-writes history.”
Sir Stelios has sparked a row with the firm over a pay deal that could award ten executives shares worth some £8m over the next three years based what he called “phoney” bonus calculations.
In a speech at the airline’s investor day yesterday, Rake rebuffed these claims, saying easyJet had picked the measure of Return on Capital Employed as “most easily measured” but would, from now on, show these on “on all three bases”.
Sir Stelios was unimpressed by this method, saying last night it was “designed to confuse the poor investors in this company for the benefit of a handful of highly paid executives”.
Rake 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 per cent of these shares were pre-flotation shares that were allocated whilst Stelios was chairman.”
