Stelios Targets Easyjet's Finance Chief in Dispute

Source: Daily Mail {Main} Edition: Country: UK Date: Tuesday 7, April 2020 Page: 72 Area: 311 sq. cm Circulation: ABC 1134184 Daily Ad data: page rate £32,508.00, scc rate £129.00 Phone: 020 7938 6000 Keyword: Stelios Haji-ioannou

Stelios targets Easyjet’s finance chief in dispute tbt jt’ id it ld t k hit i Chi THE spat between Easyjet’s board and its colourful founder MARKET REPORT intensified as he lined up the airline’s finance boss as his next tar- get in an attack on management. by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou wants Easyjet to cancel a £4.5bn order to Francesca buy 107 planes from Airbus as the firm struggles to stay afloat dur- Washtell ing the coronavirus pandemic. He claims Easyjet will run out of money by around August other- about its rapid expansion plans. wise, and has vowed not to put He has derided the planes on any more cash into the business order as ‘useless’ after Covid-19 unless it agrees to this demand. brought air travel to a virtual This has weight, considering he standstill, with Easyjet’s 344- and his family own more than a strong fleet already grounded. third of Easyjet’s shares. Easyjet insists one-off meetings Stelios heaped more pressure on to vote on directors would be ‘an management by calling on the unhelpful distraction’. company to remove finance chief Yesterday it said it has become Andrew Findlay, saying it would the first airline to secure a corona- be ‘the best way to stop him writ- virus loan from the Treasury and ing billion-pound cheques plus to Bank of England’s emergency Airbus every year’. Stelios tried to fund, worth £600m. It has also requisition a meeting last week to agreed to get a further £400m from unseat non-executive director lenders, which will tot up its cash Andreas Bierwirth. pot to £2.3bn later this week. Tensions have simmered since The latest escalation in the con- 2017 between Easyjet’s manage- flict didn’t hold back Easyjet’s ment and Stelios, who is sceptical shares, with the budget airline

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