Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary isn’t afraid of a tussle, leveraging his unique approach to diplomacy to pressure rivals and drum up interest in his airline’s low-cost seats.
However, the forthright CEO has told investors his penchant for outrage could be having an effect on his company’s value.
Speaking at Ryanair’s AGM on Thursday, the airline boss admitted his loose lips might be behind the company’s depressed share price, which has fallen by around 20% this year.
“In Ryanair there’s always some news flow. We’re fighting some union or some minister or I’m calling some minister an idiot or they’re calling me an idiot.”
Indeed, O’Leary is one of Europe’s most outspoken CEOs. He has drawn up an impressive list of foes during his time at the helm of Ryanair, warring in the past few months with rival budget airline Wizz Air, Wetherspoons boss Sir Tim Martin, and the head of U.K. air traffic controllers Nats.
He has said in the past that his comments are actually good for business, as they encourage people to Google Ryanair and stumble across his airline’s cheap flights.
“The funny thing we’ve learned over the years is actually the bad publicity sells far more seats than the good,” O’Leary said earlier this year.
Ryanair’s stock problem
Ryanair’s shares in Europe trade at a considerable discount to the airline’s American Depository Receipts (ADR) in the U.S. The company trades at $106.92 in the U.S., while shares are valued at €15.35 ($17.08) on the Irish stock market.
ADRs give American investors exposure to non-U.S. stocks without dealing with the complexities of a foreign market. Several European companies have American depositories, which typically trade at a higher price in the States owing in part to more liquidity.
Ryanair is subject to EU rules requiring an airline’s shareholders to have majority ownership from investors in the bloc.
The U.K.’s departure from the EU reduced Ryanair’s share of EU owners from 54% to 40%, causing the airline to restrict new non-EU buyers from new shares and removing voting rights from other non-EU owners.
An anticipated share buyback is expected to increase EU ownership back above the threshold, but O’Leary hopes that rules can change to increase the available pool of investors to the budget airline.
“I would be certainly in favour of removing the ownership restriction,” he said at the AGM. “I think we probably should be keeping the voting restriction, because at least that would ensure that we maintain EU control.”
The state of Ryanair’s share price is particularly important to O’Leary as it dictates whether he will receive a nine-figure payday.
O’Leary will secure a €100 billion bonus if Ryanair’s share price stays above €21 for 28 consecutive days.
Speaking last month, however, O’Leary said his bonus was “disappearing over some distant hill” amid lower fares in the industry, meaning he will “have to work harder for longer.”
He decried Dublin Airport’s decision not to expand its passenger cap beyond the current level of 32 million per year. This has been a key inhibitor to Ryanair’s growth, as Dublin is its main base.
The Airport has capacity for 60 million passengers per year since a second runway was introduced in 2022, but local authority Fingal County Council has moved to block several attempts for expansion to appease residents.
O’Leary said his airline would “make a fortune” this Christmas on outsized fares owing to the high demand for seats coming from limited spaces.
Wizz Air has said it won’t operate flights out of Ireland until the passenger cap is lifted.
In the meantime, O'Leary might want to think twice about publicly questioning the intelligence of his many nemeses.
