Willie Walsh braces for a bumpy last ride in the airline business
Willie Walsh is not quite enjoying the retirement he had planned. When his departure was announced in January, he had just led BA owner IAG to a E2.3b pre-tax profit for 2019, its share price was moving back towards all-time highs, and as one of the FTSE 100’s longest-serving CEs, he was preparing to step down in March. Fast-forward eight months and the world looks very different. After pushing back his leave date when the severity of Covid-19 became clear, Walsh will finally hand over the controls at IAG’s delayed annual meeting on Tuesday, at a time when the airline industry appears permanently changed by the pandemic and BA is flying only a fifth of its pre-crisis schedule. Instead of churning out profits, IAG made a E4.2b loss in H1 2020, and Walsh himself will leave under the cloud of a potential shareholder revolt about his big pay packet at a time when the company is laying off thousands. Walsh is a rare thing in the airline industry: a former pilot who made it to the top of the boardroom. Starting at Aer Lingus before moving to British Airways in 2005, Walsh engineered BA’s 2011 merger with Spain’s Iberia to create a new, unorthodox group with separate management teams but shared costs in some central services. Investors at Tuesday’s meeting, to be held in Madrid, will have the chance to give Walsh a final bloody nose before his departure: the influential adviser Institutional Shareholder Services is urging investors to reject a GBP883,000 bonus to be awarded to the CE for 2019 in a non-binding vote on its pay report. Several major investors are said to have indicated that they will vote against the report.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2020-09-07/oneworld/willie-walsh-braces-for-a-bumpy-last-ride-in-the-airline-business
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Willie Walsh braces for a bumpy last ride in the airline business
Willie Walsh is not quite enjoying the retirement he had planned. When his departure was announced in January, he had just led BA owner IAG to a E2.3b pre-tax profit for 2019, its share price was moving back towards all-time highs, and as one of the FTSE 100’s longest-serving CEs, he was preparing to step down in March. Fast-forward eight months and the world looks very different. After pushing back his leave date when the severity of Covid-19 became clear, Walsh will finally hand over the controls at IAG’s delayed annual meeting on Tuesday, at a time when the airline industry appears permanently changed by the pandemic and BA is flying only a fifth of its pre-crisis schedule. Instead of churning out profits, IAG made a E4.2b loss in H1 2020, and Walsh himself will leave under the cloud of a potential shareholder revolt about his big pay packet at a time when the company is laying off thousands. Walsh is a rare thing in the airline industry: a former pilot who made it to the top of the boardroom. Starting at Aer Lingus before moving to British Airways in 2005, Walsh engineered BA’s 2011 merger with Spain’s Iberia to create a new, unorthodox group with separate management teams but shared costs in some central services. Investors at Tuesday’s meeting, to be held in Madrid, will have the chance to give Walsh a final bloody nose before his departure: the influential adviser Institutional Shareholder Services is urging investors to reject a GBP883,000 bonus to be awarded to the CE for 2019 in a non-binding vote on its pay report. Several major investors are said to have indicated that they will vote against the report.<br/>
