The tea towel burns at EasyJet. And extremely rare it is between the main shareholder of the company and the management. Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the Cypriot businessman who founded EasyJet in 1995, wants to cancel a very large order for 107 Airbus A320s estimated at 4.5 billion pounds (5.9 billion d ‘euros). He also wants the company to reduce its fleet to 250 aircraft against 350 today, as the advance The gallery.
In a press release released on Tuesday, he predicted a very dark tomorrow for the company:
“If this £ 4.5 billion commitment to Airbus is not canceled by the board of directors, then I regret to say that EasyJet will run out of money around August 2020, maybe even more early.”
EasyJet in default of payment? This is in any case what the person who with 11.7% of the shares (and 34% with his family as a whole) remains the main shareholder of the airline.
New aircraft emitting less CO2
But for now neither the management nor the board of directors of the company want to give in. According to them, the company is not in such bad shape as that, especially since it has just obtained a loan of 600 million pounds (681 million euros) from the Bank of England, a loan guaranteed by the State. This arrival of fresh money brings the company’s cash to 2.3 billion pounds (2.6 billion euros). In addition, the Airbus ordered must replace old models and thus reduce the costs and the carbon footprint of the company.
Although the main shareholder, Stelios Haji-Ioannou will therefore have to convince others to influence management strategy or even get the head of the financial director whom he accuses who he says wants to squander “the money of the British taxpayer signing checks billions of pounds to Airbus. “
The management of the company wants to be more conciliatory and ensures that its contract with Airbus “allows great flexibility and that this could include order postponements and cancellation of options.”
–
–
