Sitting nicely: Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou
After three decades in a whirlwind of activity, you’d think easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou might want to put his feet up. The magnate is certainly in the right place for it: his house on the French Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy.
Instead of enjoying the chic restaurants, pristine beaches and luxury boutiques, Haji-Ioannou is busy defending his empire.
He wages war against ‘brand thieves’: companies, individuals and even boy bands who use the trademark ‘easy’ without permission.
The easyGroup spends £3 million to £4 million a year taking legal action against those who defame its name.
Haji-Ioannou, 57, says this is ‘to avoid confusing consumers’, adding: ‘Stealing the brand is profitable and that’s why they do it.’
He has built a fortune worth an estimated £865 million thanks to the budget airline and other companies under his Easy umbrella. They include hotels, car rentals, cruises, driving schools and even pizza delivery.
“We sometimes do deals with former brand thieves,” Haji-Ioannou admits, emphasizing that many see “huge benefits” from joining the business empire.
One of those groups is easyCleaning, an online maker and seller of cleaning products – such as bleach and washing powder – that joined its empire in 2020.
‘Rather than fight us, they decided it was best to join easyGroup. So we made a deal and their revenues have now increased by 30 to 40 percent,” says Haji-Ioannou.
Another dispute was with travel comparison website easyVoyage – owned by French media company Webedia – which entered into a partnership with easyGroup in 2021.
“I consider it a backhanded compliment to the brand I’ve created over the past 30 years that so many people are trying to take advantage of it,” Haji-Ioannou added.
For now, his attention is focused on a row with easyfundraising, a British website backed by a private equity firm that aims to raise money for what it claims are good causes. When a customer uses the site to shop, the partner brands donate a small percentage of what is spent to a charity of the customer’s choice.
Haji-Ioannou labels it as another brand thief. The company’s boss, James Moir, has accused the tycoon of ‘bullying’ the company through his lawsuits in a bitter battle that has dragged on for more than two years.
He denies the accusation that Haji-Ioannou only targets small businesses that do not have the resources to fight back.
“It is wrong to say that we only choose small companies,” he said, noting that easyGroup is currently competing against German car giant Volkswagen and aviation trade body the International Air Transport Association. “Sometimes we take on companies that are many times larger than us,” says Haji-Ioannou. ‘I have been taking companies to court for almost fifteen years and until recently everyone, including the media, was indifferent to it.
‘I don’t think we are alone in this either. Virgin has a budget for brand protection, just like Apple. And they also named their companies after common words.”
But the struggle sometimes extends beyond the business world. Leicester-based boy band Easy Life changed its name after Haji-Ioannou threatened legal action over their T-shirt and poster designs.
Haji-Ioannou says “brand theft” is an attack on the “billions and billions of pounds of investment” spent on marketing his empire, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.
Born into privilege as the son of shipping magnate Loucas Haji-Ioannou, he could have lived a comfortable life without much difficulty.
The Greek Cypriot businessman – who studied at the London School of Economics and Bayes Business School at London’s City University – initially worked for his father’s firm Troodos Shipping Co. But then he got a spectacular advantage when his father gave him £30 million, with which he founded Stelmar Shipping.
“The best time to start a business is when I did – at age 27 – because you know enough to run a business, but not enough to know how much risk you’re taking,” he jokes.
“And if you can find someone to finance your dreams, whether it’s a rich dad or a private equity firm, so much the better.”
In the mid-1990s, he noticed that the strict regulations for European airlines were relaxing. He believed – rightly so it turned out – that this opened the door for budget airlines, which were already popular in the US.
Shortly after this brainwave, the first orange easyJet flight took off from Luton to Glasgow.
Nearly 30 years later, easyJet is a member of the elite FTSE 100 share index.
The airline posted record profits last summer. Haji-Ioannou and his family remain the company’s largest shareholders with a stake of almost 15.3 percent, although this was previously much larger.
It hasn’t always been blue skies. Haji-Ioannou admits he thought easyJet could have gone bankrupt during the pandemic.
He credits the company’s management for helping “recover from that situation.”
This marks a change of tone for Haji-Ioannou, who has had a sometimes turbulent relationship with easyJet’s board.
2020 saw a major war of words, sparked by management’s decision to proceed with an order for large aircraft despite travel restrictions in place.
Haji-Ioannou branded the bosses “thugs.” The argument escalated to threats of legal action and he tried to oust half the board.
That wasn’t the first time the tycoon had clashed with easyJet management.
In 2012, he accused the company’s board of directors of organizing votes at annual general meetings “like one of Putin’s elections in Russia.”
That wide side came after he tried and failed to dethrone then chairman, City Grandee Sir Mike Rake.
Two years later he went on the offensive again, criticizing the company’s former CEO, Carolyn McCall, over her £6.5 million pay package.
Tensions appear to have subsided in recent years. Haji-Ioannou now says that easyJet, like any company, ‘has its ups and downs’.
Despite his new conciliatory attitude, he admits that easyJet’s stock market value is much lower than he would like.
He told The Mail on Sunday last month that bosses should consider listing the company’s shares in both New York and London to attract more US investors.
“I often look at Ryanair’s value and wonder why it is higher than easyJet,” says Haji-Ioannou. Ryanair, listed in Ireland and the US, has a market capitalization of £20 billion, compared to easyJet’s £4 billion.
However, there is no guarantee that easyJet will see its value skyrocket if it were to float to Wall Street.
While he may fiercely defend his commercial interests, Haji-Ioannou is also a major donor to charities.
He has joined The Giving Pledge, in which some of the richest people in the world pledge to donate the majority of their wealth to charity. Signatories include former Microsoft boss Bill Gates and investment guru Warren Buffett.
His charity work, he says, will be the “second sentence of my obituary.”
He adds: ‘I will always be the founder of easyJet, but now I am trying to give something back to society.’
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