It was exactly a year ago that Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou issued a thunderous dispatch to the board of easyJet. He had sold a “token” 200,000 shares, or 0.34% of his holding in the airline, but he’d be a serious seller if the directors insisted on buying more aircraft. “If they place such an order now I will be looking to dispose of more of my stake before this happens,” he said.
The board went ahead anyway with the order for 135 Airbus aircraft. But Haji-Ioannou didn’t sell more shares, either beforehand or afterwards. A good thing, too, from his point of view. EasyJet’s share price has risen 85% since he wrote, adding about £1bn to the value of the stake held by Haji-Ioannou and his siblings. Their 36.5% holding is now worth about £2.4bn.
Haji-Ioannou was silent yesterday as easyJet issued this year’s first-quarter update. The intriguing question remains: if he meant what he said a year ago about more aircraft being a “vanity exercise” that risked destroying shareholder value, why isn’t he selling when the share price is so much higher?
The Guardian