Stelios Haji-Ioannou
Stelios Haji-Ioannou | |
---|---|
Στέλιος Χατζηιωάννου | |
Born | |
Alma mater | Bayes Business School London School of Economics |
Occupation | Entrepreneur |
Known for | Founder and part-owner of easyJet |
Relatives | Loucas Haji-Ioannou (father) Polys Haji-Ioannou (brother) Clelia Haji-Ioannou (sister) |
Website | www |
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou (Greek: Στέλιος Χατζηιωάννου, romanized: Stelios Hatziioannou; 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
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.[5] 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.
Exonerated in shipping accident
In April 1991, a Troodos-owned VLCC
The "easy" companies
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[8]
- easyBus, which offers low cost bus transportation between London/Paris/Geneva airports and their respective city centres[9]
- easyHotel, which offers low cost accommodation in city centres across Europe[10]
- easyFoodstore is a new concept, currently being trialled with a view to offering discounted, "white-label" groceries to low-income and benefit dependent groups.[11]
- 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 a chain of internet cafés
Fastjet
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.[12]
Battle with Ryanair
In 2009, Haji-Ioannou brought proceedings in London's High Court over
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
He then went on to say: 'Basically, it's created no shareholder value for 10 years.'[14]
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.[15]
In April 2020, Haji-Ioannou publicly called for the removal of EasyJet PLC CEO Johan Lundgren and chairman John Barton over what he describes as a "deliberate mistake" in not terminating a £4.5 billion order for 107 planes from Airbus.[16]
Personal life
Haji-Ioannou has lived in Monaco since his family moved there when he was a teenager.[17]
In the
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."[18]
In an April 2010 letter to the
The character of Omar Baba in the BBC comedy series Come Fly With Me is reportedly based on Haji-Ioannou.[20]
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.[1]
Charity
His charitable foundation, the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation, supports education,[21][22] as well as entrepreneurial[23] and environmental initiatives[24] 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.
The Foundation finances ten undergraduate scholarships annually for students taking a three-year course at his alma mater, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a further ten postgraduate awards at City University's Bayes Business School (1-year course). It also gives a £50,000 cash prize to the winner of the Disabled Entrepreneur in the UK Award, run in conjunction with Leonard Cheshire Disability. Similar prizes are awarded for enterprises in Cyprus that help foster inter-communal relationships on the island and Greece where the Foundation hosts an award for young entrepreneurs.[citation needed]
Most recently the Foundation has joined the relief effort aimed at helping those in Greece and Cyprus worst affected by the current economic downturn. Its "Food from the Heart" initiative, based in Limassol, hands out free lunchtime snacks to registered recipients in Nicosia, Limassol and Athens. Further outlets to help cope with the refugees landing on Aegean islands are in the planning stage.[citation needed] (www.stelios.com)
He was among the benefactors of the "Make a WISH" charity event held in Monaco in June 2015, organized by the Embassy of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to Serbia.[citation needed]
See also
References
- ^ a b "Stelios Haji-Ioannou". Forbes. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
- ^ "FT Innovate Speakers and bios". Financial Times. 2006. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007.
- ^ "Top Honour for Stelios". Newcastle Business School. Archived from the original on 19 August 2007.
- ^ "Cranfield University 2006 – Honorary Graduates". Cranfield University. Archived from the original on 1 October 2007.
- ^ Morais, Richard (19 June 2001). "Proving Papa Wrong". Forbes.
- ^ a b "Making it all look easy". The Guardian. London. 21 April 2002.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4's on the Ropes". BBC. 7 July 2002.
- Time Magazine. Archived from the originalon 1 October 2007.
- Time Magazine. 8 May 2005. Archived from the originalon 2 November 2007.
- Time Magazine. Archived from the originalon 2 November 2007.
- ^ "Stelios plans to set up easyJet-style 'no brands' food store – Business". London24. 6 August 2013. Archived from the original on 4 April 2015.
- ^ "Pan-African low-cost carrier Fastjet launches scheduled flights". Flightglobal.com. 29 November 2012.
- ^ "EasyJet founder Stelios wins libel payout from Ryanair". Daily Mirror. 15 July 2010.
- ^ "The MT interview: Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou of easyJet". Management Today.
- ^ Peacock, Louisa (21 January 2013). "Sir Stelios threatens to sell family stake in fresh easyJet row". The Daily Telegraph.
- ^ "EasyJet founder Stelios calls for removal of CEO and chairman of "aircraft parking lot"". Proactiveinvestors UK. 16 April 2020. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
- ^ "Hajiioannou, Stelios". Hellenism.
- ^ Parties clash in corporate credentials battle MarketWatch, 15 November 2007
- ^ "Business supports George Osborne's national insurance cut". The Daily Telegraph. London. 31 March 2010.
- ^ "Come Fly With Me: fasten your seatbelts". The Daily Telegraph. 20 December 2010.
- ^ Stelios Scholarships City Unjiversity, London, 17 June 2011
- ^ Stelios Scholarships Archived 13 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine London School of Economics, 17 June 2011
- ^ CleanEquity Monaco 2010 Archived 26 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine Cleantech Investor, March 2010
- ^ Stelios gives €200,000 for environmental research centre Archived 31 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine Cyprus Mail, 22 October 2010
Further reading
- Walters, J (21 April 2002). "Making it all look easy". The Guardian. Comment.
- "Easyjet founder Stelios knighted". BBC News. 16 June 2006.
- Levine, G (8 July 2006). "Eclectic Empire: Haji-Ioannou's EasyJet Still Optimistic". Faces in the News. Forbes. Archived from the original on 14 August 2006.
- "Stelios threatens to grab easyJet's controls as profits nosedive" The Scotsman, 16 November 2008