Ryanair chief keener on organic growth than ‘pain in the arse’ acquisitions

Ryanair is likely to focus on organic growth in the coming years, having found its acquisitions to be “a pain in the arse”, according to group CE Michael O’Leary. Speaking in London on 17 January as he launched Ryanair’s UK summer schedule, O’Leary said the low-cost giant is “much keener on organic growth and ordering more aircraft” than looking to acquire other carriers. “We’ve done two M&As,” he states. “We did Buzz at Stansted about 20 years ago, we did Lauda in Vienna about four years ago. Both of them have been a pain in the arse.” Among his reasons for disliking acquisitions, O’Leary explains that “it’s very challenging from a cost point of view, as you are generally buying someone else’s mess and then it takes three or four years to tidy it up”. Ryanair eventually took full control of Lauda in January 2019. On Ryanair’s experience, he describes the timing of its acquisition of Austrian carrier Laudamotion in early 2019 as “spectacularly awful”. “We bought it just before Covid shut flying down for two years,” he says, adding that the unit is now profitable and growing. He further laments the regulatory challenges that come with acquisitions activity, citing his carrier’s multiple failed attempts to purchase Aer Lingus. “Most M&A in the case of Ryanair gets blocked by the European Commission,” he says, complaining that legacy carriers have not been subject to the same roadblocks in their acquisitions activity. Moreover, O’Leary says that Ryanair has a “skinny management team” and that organic growth is proving “so efficient” for the business.<br/>