In the most recent spat between Easyjet and its founder, Stelios, has called an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to sack Michael Rake.

Appointed in 2010 as Chairman of EasyJet, Rake currently serves as Chairman of BT Group plc and Deputy Chairman of Barclays. His involvement with the latter is at the crux of Stelios’ dissidence.  

Following the LIBOR scandal of July, Stelios  was keen to dissociate Easyjet from the “disgraced City establishment’”, viewing Rake as the embodiment of the City’s current lack of moral fibre. Speculation about Rake replacing former Chairman of Barclays, Marcus Angius, was therefore, in Stelios’ view, confirmation that  Easyjet’s Chairman was a liability to the company’s integrity and reputation. In spite of Rake ruling himself out as successor to Barclays’ Chairman in July, Stelios considered that Sir Michael’s interest in the job showed “a lack of loyalty and respect” towards the Easyjet board, shareholders and employees he “strung along”. The entrepreneur further declared that Rake had only given up the promotion following a “thumbs down” from “the City club of regulators and fund managers”.

“We don’t want Barclays cast-offs”, he concluded.

However, with a 37.5 per cent stake in the company, the entrepreneur’s appeal is likely to go unheeded. Earlier this year, Stelios was overruled by 97 per cent of remaining shareholders when he sought to veto senior management’s bonus proposal, arguing they were grossly inflated by the use of the return on capital employed (ROCE) ratio as a measure of the company’s health. Furthermore, an attempt to prevent Rake, three other executives, and the auditors PWC from being reappointed were similarly overruled. Unable to instill longer-term incentives for senior management, Stelios publicly indicted “fat cat city bonus culture” as a symptom of the “conflicts of interest” that hinder the company. “Turkeys will never vote for Christmas”, he said, pointing to the fact that Easyjet’s shareholders – many of them publicly listed companies themselves – are less likely to act in the company’s absolute interest.

Update: Sir Mike Rake has survived the attempt to oust him, the second of its kind.