EasyJet founder slams Stelmar directors over $677m takeover bid

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the entrepreneur and founder of easyJet, threatened yesterday to sue the directors of Stelmar, the shipping group he founded more than a decade ago, after they agreed a $677m (£379m) takeover offer months after rejecting outright a similar bid from its rival, OMI.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the entrepreneur and founder of easyJet, threatened yesterday to sue the directors of Stelmar, the shipping group he founded more than a decade ago, after they agreed a $677m (£379m) takeover offer months after rejecting outright a similar bid from its rival, OMI.

The recommended cash offer for Stelmar from Fortress Investment Partners, which was announced yesterday, values it marginally higher than the OMI bid. However, in a letter to Stelmar yesterday, Mr Haji-Ioannou's solicitors said the bid was worth $8-a-share less than the OMI bid, based on OMI's share price on Friday. Mr Haji-Ioannou criticises the board for not consulting OMI before accepting the Fortress bid and for taking only days to reject OMI's proposal while refusing to enter talks.

"That decision [to reject OMI's proposal] was clearly failure by the board of directors to consider a viable way to maximise shareholder value and to the extent that shareholder value has been lost for ever, our client intends to hold them personally liable for it. By multiplying the company's 17.4 million shares by $8-a-share, the shareholders have already lost approximately $140m," the letter says.

Mr Haji-Ioannou and his family are the largest shareholders in Stelmar, which floated on the New York Stock Exchange in 2001.

The letter alleges Stelmar rejected the OMI offer to preserve their jobs, likely to have been lost in an OMI takeover. Fortress is likely to keep senior management in their posts. Mr Haji-Ioannou's solicitor alleges that Stelmar's management may have rejected other offers from trade buyers, also because of the fear of losing their jobs.

The clash is the latest development in a bitter battle between Mr Haji-Ioannou and the Stelmar management he installed before standing down as group chairman in 2002. This year, the chief executive, Peter Goodfellow, and the chief financial officer, Stamatis Molaris, were fined for taking illegal loans from the business. Neither was available for comment yesterday. In a statement yesterday afternoon, Nick Hartley, the chairman, said: "This transaction represents the best opportunity to create significant value for our shareholders."