EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou offers £5million reward to any whistleblower who can help scrap airline’s £4.5billion deal to buy 107 new Airbus planes
- In an open letter, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou said he is ‘willing’ to pay the cash out of his own pocket
- Sir Stelios says easyJet can not afford the deal and wants it canceled
- Sir Stelios was awarded £60m dividend in March and £170m was paid to shareholders
- EasyJet secured a £600 million loan from the government to weather coronavirus outbreak – a move condemned by Sir Stelios
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
The founder of easyJet has promised to pay £5 million to any whistleblower who can help him stop the company’s multibillion-pound deal to buy over 100 new planes.
In an open letter, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou said he is ‘willing’ to pay the cash out of his own pocket, the latest twist in a bitter battle with the company’s management.
The Haji-Ioannou family has been using its 34% of the shares in the budget airline to put pressure on top bosses, including chief executive Johan Lundgren.
Sir Stelios, 53, wants Mr Lundgren to cancel a £4.5 billion deal to buy 107 planes from European aircraft maker Airbus.
In an open letter, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou said he is ‘willing’ to pay the cash out of his own pocket, the latest twist in a bitter battle with the company’s management (Pictured Stelios Haji-Ioannu on his boat in Monaco)
He claims that easyJet ‘simply cannot afford’ the deal.
In a blistering letter, Sir Stelios argues that its obligations to pay for the planes will drive easyJet into insolvency by December this year.
He said that some directors, who he regards as ‘scoundrels’, have ‘over-ordered’ planes from Airbus, a company he accused of being ‘masters of bribery’.
He added: ‘If the Airbus contract is cancelled, at least there is a good chance a portion of easyJet’s jobs will survive. If the Scoundrels keep paying Airbus and then bankrupt the company, all 15,000 direct easyJet and many more other jobs dependent on easyJet will be lost.’
Sir Stelios, a Greek-Cypriot entrepreneur, said he was willing to pay out to any whistleblower ‘who provides useful information that leads to the cancellation of the order’.
Sky News reported that Sir Stelios will release a statement later today in which he will ask for information to be emailed to him ‘in full confidence’ by any easyJet or Airbus employee or any supplier to the airline, who has inside information.
‘As the overwhelming evidence is that easyJet requires neither more loss-making planes nor massive liabilities, we need to establish why easyJet directors still want to pursue this route,’ the statement will say, according to Sky.
Sir Stelios is tipped to say that he is willing ‘to make stage payments for engaging with any whistleblowers of, say, around £10,000 for some quick wins/tips and will pay more to maintain the dialogue’.
EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren. Sir Stelios, 53, wants Mr Lundgren to cancel a £4.5 billion deal to buy 107 planes from European aircraft maker Airbus
He will also guarantee to pay an informant’s legal bills. Full payment of the £5m will be paid out, ‘once the Airbus-easyJet contract is cancelled after it has been proven as a result of the information given by the whistleblower that Airbus secured the orders using bribery techniques’.
It is unusual for whistleblowers to be financially rewarded by investors in the company.
However, in the US whistleblowers can be given up to a third of the money that the government recovers in some fraud cases.
The promise from the company’s founder comes just over a week before shareholders are set to take a vote that could cost Mr Lundgren his job.
Sir Stelios has called for the chief executive, chairman John Barton, and two non-executives, to be removed from their positions.
Shareholders will vote on his demands next Friday.
It’s been a turbulent few months for the budget airline.
In March, Sir Stelios was awarded a £60m dividend while £170m in payments to shareholders were also paid out.
Justifying the £170million payout Sir Stelios, who with his siblings are the largest single shareholders in the carrier, insisted that the dividends were ‘legal’ and ‘rightful’.
He said: ‘The reality of the situation is the dividend was legally at the point of no return on the 6th of February, or at the very latest on the 27th of February 2020. The world looked like a much happier place on the 6th of February and the dividend was rightfully paid to all shareholders’.
It emerged in April that the easyJet founder had lost £1.2billion in less than a month as the value of his shares in the airline plummeted amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, the business tycoon called for the ousting of the company’s chief executive and chairman after bosses pushed ahead with a deal with Airbus to buy 24 new planes.
Sir Stelios accused the Luton-based firm of behaving like ‘scoundrels’ over their decision to press ahead with the £1.5billion agreement to purchase the aircraft.
Since the coronavirus pandemic grounded easyJet’s entire operation, the company has turned to the Government for a £600 million loan. The Luton-based carrier, has furloughed thousands of staff.
But Sir Stelios warned: ‘What the scoundrels are not telling us at all is how much money the company will burn each week after the resumption of flying, which will be well in excess of the £40 million per week that they state that they burn whilst the fleet is grounded.
Flying half empty planes will be heavily loss-making. That £40 million per week of cash burn is before the payments to Airbus…
‘UK taxpayers should be really worried now that they will not see any of their money back in March 2021,’ he said.
The airline employs 9,000 staff and was the first in the UK to stop all flights and mothball all jets since the coronavirus pandemic took hold in Britain.
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