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Stelios raising £7.5m to grow
24.09.09
Easyjet tycoon Stelios Haji-Ioannou today raised £7.5 million by parking two million of his shares in the budget airline, around 1% of the company, with an unnamed City bank.
It is believed the entrepreneur needs the money to finance the expansion of his easyGroup private empire and specifically his easyHotel and easyBus interests.
Haji-Ioannou has raised the cash through a so-called liquidity collar transaction, a financial instrument in which the bank lends the money in return for a fee and in this case an arrangement which hands the bank the profit if the easyJet share price rises above 444p. Shares in easyJet are trading at 379p, off 1p.
