Mon, 5th Sep 2011 14:13
LONDON, Sept 5 (Reuters) - EasyJet's largest shareholder and founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou has
called for a shareholders' meeting to vote on the removal of Rigas Doganis as an independent non-executive director, part of a long-running dispute he has had with the company.
Haji-Ioannou, who along with his siblings holds around 38 percent of the low-cost carrier, highlighted the fact Doganis earlier this year voted for the airline to buy 35 planes from Airbus - a move which Haji-Ioannou does not believe is not in easyJet's interests.
He also criticised Doganis for failing to forsee that easyJet would have to report a profit warning just two weeks after it placed the plane order with Airbus, which Haji-Ionnou claims hit the company's share price.
'He (Doganis) failed to foresee on January 4, 2011 the profit warning announced on January 20, 2011. That profit warning has since destroyed about a quarter of the company's market capitalisation or some 600 million pounds,' Haji-Ionnou wrote in a letter to the easyJet board.
'Had the profit warning been announced before the aircraft order, we believe that the drop in the market cap would have necessitated a shareholder vote for the capital expenditure in circumstances where he would have known that the directors would have failed to obtain such approval.'
Rigas, who was appointed to the easyJet board in 2005, is an aviation consultant and strategy adviser to airlines, airports, banks and governments around the world.
Haji-Ioannou, better known as Stelios, last month called for a shareholder vote on the removal of David Michels as a director
and has previously demanded a vote over the Airbus deal.
Shares in easyJet, which have fallen a quarter in 2011, were 4.2 percent down at 319.25 pence by 1250 GMT, valuing the company at around 1.4 billion pounds ($2.27 billion).
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