Ryanair founder sells shares

RYANAIR founder Tony Ryan has collected €25 million from the sale of five million shares in the no-frills airline, the company said yesterday.

Mr Ryan sold the shares, which represented almost half of his 1.4% stake in the company, in the market on Thursday.

He retains almost six million shares worth approximately €30m, as well as options to buy a further 50,000 shares at a special discount price of €3.70. These can only be exercised from June next year, however.

Mr Ryan, whose wealth was estimated at more than €1 billion by American financial magazine Forbes earlier this year, has been a non-executive director at the airline since the mid-1990s.

He has steadily reduced his stake in the company, along with the shareholdings held by his sons Cathal, Shane and Declan.

A former chairman of aircraft leasing firm GPA, Mr Ryan recently extended his interests in air transport to include Tiger Airways, a start-up airline in southeast Asia operated by a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines.

He was also reported as having an eye on Air Macau, a regional airline serving the former Portuguese colony that reverted to Chinese control in the 1990s.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary has established a pattern of regular share sales that has seen him gradually reduce his personal stake in the airline to 5.4%.

Mr O’Leary’s stake is valued at €200m, but yesterday said he had no plans to sell any more of his shares at current prices.

In a separate development yesterday, the company also announced a new service from Knock, Co Mayo, to London Gatwick, as well as three new routes from its hub at London Stansted.

The new Stansted services will operate to Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic, Wroclaw in Poland and Granada in Spain. It will also increase the frequency on its Stansted-Cork route from three flights per day to four and will add two more daily flights to its Stansted-Shannon service.