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01 February 2012 10:00
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An ongoing feud between easyJet and its founder continued today, as the airline's chairman denied its directors were riding the "gravy train".
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who with his family owns 37.5% of the airline's shares, has hit out at a pay deal which could award 10 executives shares worth £8 million over the next three years.
But Sir Michael Rake told investors there were "numerous inaccuracies" in Sir Stelios's recent comments about the airline and accused the major shareholder of launching "increasingly personalised" attacks on individuals in the company.
Sir Michael hit back at Sir Stelios's comments that the "gravy train of £180 million free shares issued over the last decade must come to an end" and said: "75% of these shares were pre-flotation shares that were allocated whilst Stelios was chairman."
Elsewhere, Sir Michael dismissed Sir Stelios's complaints about easyJet's purchase of 15 new planes reported to be at a cost of 1.5 billion US dollars (£950 million).
Sir Michael said: "The true figure is substantially less than half of that."
Sir Stelios, who founded the airline in 1995, has written to Prime Minister David Cameron accusing easyJet's board of softening performance targets in order to make the share payout for executive directors more easily attainable.
He has also reportedly written to the company's largest institutional investors to raise his concerns about aircraft acquisitions by easyJet and the group's strategy.
The company thought it had seen an end to the dispute after it promised £190 million in dividends to investors, landing the airline's founder and his family about £70 million.
And the group, which operates more than 580 routes across 30 countries, sparked a surge in its share price last week when it said total revenues were up 16.7% to £763 million in the three months to December 31.
Sir Stelios was quick to come back to Sir Michael after details of his speech were published.
He said: "I have more years of experience than anyone else on that board in buying aircraft and I can tell a bad deal when I see one. And I have more to lose if I get it wrong. My interests are aligned with shareholders unlike his."
