New Whitbread boss comes under attack

Andy Harrison, the soon-to-be chief executive at Whitbread, has been heavily critcised by Sir Stelios HajiIoannou, the founder of easyJet, the company he is about to step down from.

The rebuke from Sir Stelios came as Harrison delivered his last set of results for easyJet before his departure to hotel operator Whitbread next month.

A report in The Times​ said Sir Stelios had described Harrison as "over rated".

The newspaper quoted a source as saying: "Stelios thinks that Andy Harrison's performance is over rated. Over the past five years Andy Harrison developed a love affair with Airbus, squandered $4bn doubling the size of the fleet while he paid no dividend and the share price has gone sideways.

"The only thing that went up was the size of his bonus. Stelios feels sorry for Whitbread shareholders. If Harrison applies the same philosophy, he will cut the dividend to zero, agree a contract to build 300 Premier Inns across the Continent and five years later the share price will be about the same."

Sir Stelios, who controls 38% of easyJet's shares, wants the budget carrier to increase its profit margins and start to pay a dividend. He has argued that this is

not possible when the air-line is growing rapidly and paying billions of dollars for new aircraft.

Harrison declined to comment on Sir Stelios. He told The Times​: "I executed the strategy agreed by the board as well as I could. I'll leave judgment to the market."