Aer Lingus 'not scared' of O'Leary
Aer Lingus is not afraid of Michael O’Leary becoming a troublesome shareholder at future AGMs if his daring takeover bid fails, the airline said today.
The low fares boss bought a 19% stake in the former state carrier for €1.4bn last month in a surprise merger proposal.
However Aer Lingus chairman John Sharman said today that Mr O’Leary will be like any other shareholder at company AGMs in the future.
“He is a shareholder. He will have a voice. There are other shareholders and they have voices too.
He added: “There will be some interesting AGMs.”
Aer Lingus CEO Dermot Mannion added: “We will fulfil our responsibilities to all shareholders and we will face at the Annual General Meeting whatever questions or issues any shareholder wishes to raise. That is their right. We will respect that and abide by it.”
Aer Lingus today published a Defence Document urging shareholders to reject Mr O’Leary’s takeover bid as ill-conceived, contradictory and anti-competitive.
The executives were restrained in their comments at a news conference in Dublin’s Gresham Hotel compared to Mr O’Leary’s colourful launch of an offer document to shareholders a fortnight ago.
Mr Mannion today joked that the biggest disruption from the Ryanair bid was that he had to break away from his US holiday.
In urging for new seat selection measures on Aer Lingus flights, he chided Ryanair for its "cattle rush" open seating policy at boarding gates.
Mr Sharman added: “It’s interesting that Michael is willing to invest that amount of money in a business we manage instead of a business he manages.”
“The business will still be governed, irrespective of Michael’s shareholding, in accordance with the rules we put in place over the past two or three years, which are pretty much in accordance with the highest standards of the industry.”
Mr Mannion noted that it was a business transaction and he didn’t hold any personal rancour towards Mr O’Leary.
“We have not singled out Ryanair for any special level of hostility.”
Mr Sharman added: “We’ve nothing against Michael O’Leary.”
He also referred to an apples and oranges analogy to stress that the proposed Ryanair takeover was completely incompatible with Aer Lingus.
“Without any disrespect to Ryanair, we are saying that we have the expertise within Aer Lingus to grow this business going forward and to enhance shareholder value,” added Mr Mannion.
The executives said that neither the Aer Lingus board or the airline’s staff wanted the Ryanair bid to succeed and were united in their opposition in this regard.
