EASYJET chairman Sir Mike Rake yesterday narrowly survived an attempt by the airline’s founder to oust him from the board.
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who is also the carrier’s largest shareholder, had called for Rake to be removed from his position at EasyJet because of the number of roles he holds elsewhere – including deputy chairman of Barclays.
At a shareholder meeting yesterday, 46.7 per cent of votes cast were in favour of Rake’s removal as a director and chairman of the company, with 53.3 per cent against.
EasyJet had previously said that it had received written statements from seven of its top institutional shareholders, controlling 26.5 per cent of its shares, indicating they would vote against the resolution, which was tabled by Stelios’s EasyGroup.
Proxy services Glass Lewis and ISS had also recommended that investors vote against the plan.
Charles Gurassa, the budget airline’s deputy chairman and senior independent director, thanked shareholders for their “ongoing support” for Rake, who has been chairman since January 2010.
He added: “The board continues to seek a constructive relationship with all its shareholders and urges Sir Stelios and EasyGroup to engage with EasyJet. I and other members of the board are available to meet them at any time”.
The row was the latest in a series of spats between the airline’s founder and its directors. Earlier this year, Stelios was defeated in his attempt to throw out a multi-million pound pay deal for executives. Almost 97 per cent of EasyJet investors – excluding the 37.5 per cent stake owned by Stelios and his family – voted in favour of the airline’s remuneration deal.
He also failed to encourage enough investors to reject the re-election of four directors, including Rake.
Rake, who is also chairman of BT and a director at publishing group McGraw-Hill, last month ruled himself out of the race to take over from Marcus Agius as chairman of Barclays. Agius has since been replaced at the scandal-hit bank by former Bank of England deputy governor Sir David Walker.
Stelios, who set up EasyJet in 1995 when he was 28, criticised the City as a place where “conflicts of interest and web of directorships are encouraged and protected for the benefit of a handful of insiders”. He accused Rake of being “asleep at the Barclays switch” when the Libor scandal broke. The bank was fined £290 million by regulators in the UK and US for its part in manipulating the interbank lending rate.
Last week the Financial Services Authority launched an overhaul of Libor, described by the City regulator as “no longer fit for purpose”, in a bid to rebuild trust in the system.
Stelios said Rake “cannot shuffle away from his responsibilities” at Barclays, where he chairs the audit committee and sits on the risk management and corporate governance committees.
He added: “I hope this sad episode will highlight the need for tougher guidelines on the number of corporate directorships any one person can hold. The current practice of collecting them like Boy Scout badges – BT, Barclays, McGraw-Hill and EasyJet – needs to end.
“Too many shareholders have been let down too often because non-executive directors are just too busy to hold managements to account in an increasingly complex corporate landscape.”