On
the Ropes - Stelios Haji-Iaonnou
Tuesday
9 July, 9.00am, BBC Radio 4
Stelios
Haji-Iaonnou is seen by many as a successful businessman.
But
in this week's On The Ropes (BBC Radio 4, Tuesday 9 July, 9.00am,
repeated 9.30pm), he speaks frankly about the manslaughter charges
he faced after the explosion of his father's tanker; his impending
departure from Easyjet as chairman; and the near collapse of his
internet café, which he says was the worst business mistake
that he's made.
It
was when he was in his early twenties and he was running his father's
shipping company that an ageing oil tanker exploded and five people
died.
Stelios
says it was probably the worst day of his life, and the experience
was character forming and taught him a lot about safety: "One
of my favourite mottos, the one that probably was born out of that
sort of experience was 'If you think safety's expensive, try an
accident' and you know that's why, ever since then I've been very
deeply committed to the safest possible operations in whatever I
do, whether it's ships, cars, aeroplanes, the lot."
He
was charged with manslaughter by an Italian prosecutor on the basis
of claims that the ship had been inadequately repaired after it
was hit by a rocket during the Iraq/Iran war, but after 11 years
was cleared.
"Three
levels of justice later – you know first instance, court of
appeal, supreme court in Italy - we'd been fully cleared, acquitted,"
he tells On the Ropes.
"Of
course I'm not proud of what happened, but at the end of the day
what counts is, is the final judgement of the supreme court in Italy
that says we didn't do anything wrong.
"It
was human error. It was an accident, a tragic accident and as I
said it has helped focus my mind on the need for safety."
A year
later Stelios started his own shipping company at the age of 25,
and from there he moved on to form Easyjet.
He
took everything back to basics, and as founder, chairman and major
shareholder he led the budget airline to success, resulting in the
recent take-over of its main rival Go.
But
he is soon to finish as chairman, after claims from investors that
his style is overbearing.
He
says the investors who raised the issue weren't the significant
ones, but were more activists: "The cause they were championing
is one I, I subscribe to believe it or not, which says that no person
should be too powerful in a plc."
With
about a 20 per cent interest in the company he says he now sees
his long-term future as an active shareholder, keeping an eye on
it and its performance.
And
he says it was definitely his decision to leave: "It was voluntary
and it's what I wanted to do to free up my time, in order to concentrate
on new businesses.
"I
don't see myself as an airline chairman, I see myself as a serial
entrepreneur."
He
used the profits from Easyjet to start up a string of other companies
including Easyrentacar, Easy Everything internet cafes and Easymoney
- an internet bank.
It
was his Easy Everything internet cafe that went badly wrong.
He
built 23 shops in 13 cities in eight countries on two continents
in less than a year and describes it as a recipe for disaster: "Anybody
who knows anything about retailing… will tell you that you
focus in one geographical area, you saturate that and then you move
on, you don't go in eight countries and two continents in one year.
"So
I, I broke many of the conventional rules in, in retailing for the
wrong reason because we wanted to grow very fast and because capital
was almost freely available.
"And
I paid for that price and em the other thing we did is we broke
the other... em sort of rule of, of an 'easy' business, which is
keep it simple, we wanted to be too many things.
"We
wanted to be a coffee operator, and an Internet operator and a multi
media operator and we had web cameras and we were downloading music
and, and all the other fancy things that were the flavour of the
month, when in reality all that people want is, is the cheapest
possible Internet access."
He
has had to pour millions of his own money into the business to pull
it back from the brink of collapse, and he says only time will tell
whether it will become a valid business.
But,
undaunted, he is pushing ahead with his new business venture Easy
Cinema which he's planning for the next six months, and he says
it will see him buying a cinema and offering some movies at 20 pence
a ticket.
"You
start from the premise that says if there are, I don’t know,
five million people who go to the cinema if the price is £6,
if you manage to take it down to £2 on average, which means
occasionally - through yield management which is this process of
changing a price according to demand - occasionally would go as
little as 20 pence, then you could more than triple the number of
people who go to the cinema," he says.
Notes
to Editors
BBC
Radio 4's On The Ropes (BBC Radio 4, Tuesday 9 July, 9.00am, repeated
9.30pm) should be credited in any copy used.
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