Sitting pretty: 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 tycoon is certainly in the right place for it – his house on the French Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy.
Instead of enjoying the fancy restaurants, pristine beaches and high-end boutiques, Haji-Ioannou’s mind is on the defence of his empire.
He is waging war on ‘brand thieves’ – firms, individuals and even boy bands who use the ‘easy’ trademark without permission.
The easyGroup spends £3 million to £4 million a year taking legal action against those who infringe its name.
Haji-Ioannou, 57, says it is ‘to prevent consumers from being confused’, 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 rental, cruises, driving schools and even pizza delivery.
‘We sometimes do deals with former brand thieves,’ Haji-Ioannou admits, insisting that many see ‘enormous benefits’ from joining the business empire.
One such group is easyCleaning, an online maker and seller of cleaning products – such as bleach and washing powder – which joined his empire in 2020.
‘Instead of fighting us, they decided the best thing was to join easyGroup. So we did a deal and their revenues are now up 30 to 40 per cent,’ Haji-Ioannou says.
Another dispute was with travel comparison website easyVoyage – owned by French media company Webedia – which inked a partnership with easyGroup in 2021.
‘I consider it a back-handed compliment to the brand I have created over the last 30 years that so many people are trying to take advantage of it,’ Haji-Ioannou adds.
For now, his attention is focused on a row with easyfundraising, a UK website, backed by a private equity firm, that aims to raise money for what it says are good causes.
When a customer uses the site to shop, its partner brands donate a small percentage of what is spent to a charity of the shopper’s choice.
Haji-Ioannou labels it another brand thief. The firm’s boss James Moir has accused the tycoon of ‘bullying’ the company through his lawsuits in a bitter struggle that has dragged on for over two years.
The charge that Haji-Ioannou is targeting only small firms which do not have the resources to fight back is one that he denies.
‘It’s false to say we only pick on small companies,’ he says, pointing out that easyGroup is currently battling against German car giant Volkswagen and airline trade body the International Air Transport Association.
‘We’re sometimes taking on companies that are many times our size,’ Haji-Ioannou says. ‘I’ve been taking companies to court for the best part of 15 years and until recently everyone including the media were indifferent to it.
‘I don’t think we’re alone in this either. Virgin has a brand protection budget and so does Apple. And they have also named their companies after ordinary words.’
But the fight has sometimes extended beyond the realms of business. Leicester-based boy band Easy Life changed its name after Haji-Ioannou threatened legal action over their T-shirt and poster designs.
Haji-Ioannou argues that ‘brand theft’ is an attack on the ‘billions and billions of pounds of investment’ devoted to marketing his empire, which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary.
Born into privilege as the son of shipping magnate Loucas Haji-Ioannou, he could have led a comfortable life without exerting much effort.
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 received a spectacular leg-up when his father gave him £30 million, which he used to establish Stelmar Shipping.
‘The best time to start a business is when I did – at the age of 27 – because you know enough to manage a firm but not enough to know how much risk you’re taking,’ he jokes.
‘And if you can get someone to finance your dreams, be it a rich father or a private equity firm, so much the better.’
In the mid-1990s he spotted that the strict regulations on European airlines were being relaxed. He believed – correctly as it turned out – that this was opening the door to budget airlines, which were already popular in the US.
Soon after this brainwave, the first orange-liveried easyJet flight took off from Luton to Glasgow.
Fast forward almost 30 years and easyJet is a member of the elite FTSE 100 share index.
The airline made record profits last summer. Haji-Ioannou and his family remain the company’s biggest shareholders with a stake of nearly 15.3 per cent although it was previously much larger.
It hasn’t always been blue skies. Haji-Ioannou admits that he thought easyJet could have ‘gone bust’ during the pandemic.
He praises the firm’s management for helping to ‘recover from that situation’.
This is a change of tone for Haji-Ioannou, who has at times had a turbulent relationship with easyJet’s board.
In 2020 there was a major war of words, sparked by management’s decision to continue with a large aircraft order despite the travel restrictions that were in place.
Haji-Ioannou branded the bosses ‘scoundrels’. The row escalated to threats of legal action and he attempted to oust half of the board.
That wasn’t the first time the magnate butted heads with easyJet’s management.
In 2012 he accused the firm’s board of running votes at annual general meetings ‘like one of Putin’s elections in Russia’.
That broadside came after he tried and failed to unseat the then chairman, City grandee Sir Mike Rake.
Two years later he was on the attack again, criticising the company’s former chief executive Carolyn McCall over her £6.5 million pay packet.
Tensions appear to have cooled in recent years. Haji-Ioannou now says that, like every business, easyJet ‘has its up and downs’.
Despite his new conciliatory stance, he admits easyJet’s stock market value is far lower than he’d like.
He told The Mail on Sunday last month that bosses should consider listing the company’s shares in New York as well as London to attract more American investors.
‘I often look at the value of Ryanair and wonder why it is higher than easyJet,’ Haji-Ioannou says. Ryanair, which is listed in Ireland and the US, has a stock market value of £20 billion, compared with easyJet’s £4 billion.
However, there is no guarantee that easyJet would see its value skyrocket if it were to fly off to Wall Street.
While he may be fierce in defence of his commercial interests, Haji-Ioannou is also a big charit- able donor.
He has signed up to The Giving Pledge, where some of the world’s wealthiest people promise to donate most of their wealth to charity. Signatories include former Microsoft boss Bill Gates and investment guru Warren Buffett.
His charitable work, he says, will be the ‘second sentence of my obituary’.
He adds: ‘I’ll always be the founder of easyJet, but now I’m working on giving back to society.’
