Stelios Haji-Ioannou

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou (Template:Langx; born 14 February 1967) is a Greek Cypriot entrepreneur. Born into a wealthy ship-owning family, he is best known for founding the low-cost airline easyJet and the Stelmar shipping line with start-up funds provided by his father, Loucas. EasyJet's foundation in 1995 marked the beginning of a series of ventures marketed under the "easy" brand, managed by easyGroup and chaired by Haji-Ioannou.

Early life

Stelios Haji-Ioannou was born in Athens, Kingdom of Greece on 14 February 1967, the second of three children of Nedi (née Potsos) and Loucas Haji-Ioannou. He has an elder brother, Polys, and a younger sister, Clelia. Both of his siblings have a large stake in easyJet.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His father's family originates from the village of Pedoulas high in the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus, while his mother is from the village of Laneia at the foot of the mountains. After his secondary education in Athens, he studied economics at the London School of Economics, graduating with a BSc in 1987. He went on to obtain an MSc in Shipping, Trade & Finance from Bayes Business School. He was later awarded four honorary doctorates from Bayes Business School,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Liverpool John Moores University, Newcastle Business School,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Cranfield University.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early career

A self-labelled "serial entrepreneur", Haji-Ioannou started working in 1988 for his father's already successful shipping business, Troodos Shipping Co Ltd. At 25, Haji-Ioannou received £30 million from his father, that he used to set up his own shipping company, Stelmar Shipping.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Haji-Ioannou floated the company on the New York Stock Exchange in 2001. In 2005, Stelmar Shipping was sold to the OSG Group for approximately $1.3 billion.

MT Haven shipping accident

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In April 1991, a Troodos-owned VLCC oil tanker suffered a disaster that resulted in six deaths and spilt about 50,000 tons of crude oil into the sea, becoming arguably the Mediterranean's worst-ever ecological disaster.<ref name="Making it all look easy">Template:Cite news</ref> The tanker, M/T Haven, was an elderly vessel, formerly the Amoco Haven, sister ship of the ill-starred Amoco Cadiz that had foundered in 1978. Haji-Ioannou was accused of poor maintenance and charged in Italy with manslaughter, in addition to intimidating and attempting to bribe witnesses. Haji-Ioannou blamed the accident on an error by one of the surviving crew members.Template:Citation needed He and his father were acquitted by the jury. Subsequent civil demands for compensation were also dismissed by the courts.<ref name="Making it all look easy"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

"easy" companies

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Haji-Ioannou started easyJet in 1995 when he was 28 years old, running a service between Luton and Scotland. In 2000, easyJet PLC was partially floated on the London Stock Exchange. He and his family remain its largest single shareholders (34%) in the airline, capitalised at £4.17bn as of 9 May 2019.

Haji-Ioannou conducts business via his private investment vehicle, the easyGroup, which owns the 'easy' brand and licenses it to the various 'easy'-branded ventures, including the airline. Haji-Ioannou continues to extend his business interests, mainly in the field of travel and leisure by encouraging entrepreneurs to adopt the "easy" brand for their companies.

easyJet PLC is one of Europe's largest airlines with a fleet of 323 aircraft carrying over 88.5m passengers annually (2018 figures).

Other travel/leisure-related businesses include:

• easyCar, which offers a peer-to-peer car sharing scheme as well as low cost car rental in 2,000 locations globally<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• easyBus, which offers low cost bus transportation between London/Paris/Geneva airports and their respective city centres<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• easyHotel, which offers low cost accommodation in city centres across Europe<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• easyFoodstore was a concept that was trialled with a view to offering discounted, "white-label" groceries to low-income and benefit dependent groups. As of late 2021, its only location has closed.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• easyGym which offers low cost, no-contract gym memberships at 16 locations in the UK and five in France, while looking to expand further inside the EU.
• easyProperty which offers an online service to homeowners and prospective buyers as well landlords and tenants.
• easyCruise was a low-cost cruise line started in 2004. It was sold in August 2009 to Greek ferry operator Hellenic Seaways for £9 million and ran until it went defunct in 2010.
• easyCoffee owns a number of self-service coffee machines including a cafe in Central London.
• easyStorage offers low cost storage, some times referred to Self Storage. Customers pay a sensible margin for storage and then pay for all the extras as they need them. These would be packing materials, packing, insurance, as well as collection and deliver
• easyInternetcafé was Europe's largest chain of Internet cafés and was the holder of the record for the world's largest Internet café. It went defunct in 2009.

Fastjet

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In September 2011 it was reported that Haji-Ioannou was working on Fastjet, a new low-cost airline serving routes within Africa, as part of a joint venture with Lonrho plc. The airline started operations on 29 November 2012 with Airbus A319 aircraft.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Battle with Ryanair

In 2009, Haji-Ioannou brought proceedings in London's High Court over Ryanair adverts which appeared in The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and on Ryanair's website in January and February. The adverts featured a picture of Haji-Ioannou in the style of Pinocchio and referred to him as "easyJet's Mr Late Again". The case was eventually settled out of court, with Haji-Ioannou receiving an official apology from the airline and the sum of £50,100, which Haji-Ioannou announced he would donate to his philanthropic foundation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Disagreement with EasyJet

In 2010, Haji-Ioannou left the board of EasyJet, in order to attempt to force the management of the company to abort their expansion plans.

In an interview with Management Today, he said: 'EasyJet is seen as a huge success, which I'm happy about, because I own the brand. But easyJet is a publicly listed company. The share price has gone up and down as it's got bigger and things have happened – but overall, really it's gone sideways.'

He then went on to say: 'Basically, it's created no shareholder value for 10 years.'<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2013, Haji-Ioannou said he had become "increasingly concerned" at easyJet's expansion plans. He announced that he sold 200,000 easyJet shares in protest against plans to buy more planes, while his siblings have done the same with their shares.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In April 2020, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou publicly demanded the removal of EasyJet PLC’s CEO, Johan Lundgren, and Chairman, John Barton, accusing them of a “deliberate mistake” in failing to cancel a £4.5 billion order for 107 Airbus aircraft. His criticism came amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as EasyJet simultaneously sought a £600 million loan from the UK government’s coronavirus support scheme—despite grounding its entire fleet and facing severe financial pressures.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Personal life

Haji-Ioannou has lived in Monaco since his family moved there when he was a teenager.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In the 2006 Birthday Honours, Haji-Ioannou received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for "services to entrepreneurship".

Haji-Ioannou was a member of the New Enterprise Council, a group set up to advise the Conservative Party on business policy. He stated at the time that this appointment did not reflect his political affiliations, adding, "I agreed to be included in the group of entrepreneurs because I was assured it will be non-partisan. [There is] not much difference between left and right any more."<ref>Parties clash in corporate credentials battle MarketWatch, 15 November 2007</ref>

In an April 2010 letter to the Daily Telegraph, Haji-Ioannou joined 23 other UK business leaders, including Marks & Spencer's Stuart Rose and Next's Simon Wolfson, criticising the Brown government's plans to raise National Insurance contribution rates.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The character of Omar Baba in the BBC comedy series Come Fly With Me is reportedly based on Haji-Ioannou.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2018, he filed an infringement claim against Netflix over their series Easy in a UK court, saying that use of the name breaches the Easy Group's European trademarks.<ref name=":0" />

Charity

His charitable foundation, the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation, supports education,<ref>Stelios Scholarships City Unjiversity, London, 17 June 2011</ref><ref>Stelios Scholarships Template:Webarchive London School of Economics, 17 June 2011</ref> as well as entrepreneurial<ref>CleanEquity Monaco 2010 Template:Webarchive Cleantech Investor, March 2010</ref> and environmental initiatives<ref>Stelios gives €200,000 for environmental research centre Template:Webarchive Cyprus Mail, 22 October 2010</ref> through the provision of funding and advice in the UK, Greece and Cyprus. It also sponsors annual awards with cash prizes to entrepreneurs in the UK, Greece and Cyprus.

See also

• Cyprus Marine Environment Protection Association
• Low-cost airlines

Further reading

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• "Stelios threatens to grab easyJet's controls as profits nosedive" The Scotsman, 16 November 2008

External links

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