Founder Stelios votes against easyJet director pay

LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - EasyJet (Other OTC: ESYJY - news) founder Stelios

Haji-Ioannou voted against the 2013 pay plans of the British

budget airline's directors on Thursday, in the latest broadside

from the company's largest investor.

Haji-Ioannou, better known as Stelios, has had several

disputes with easyJet's board in recent years and has repeatedly

criticized multi-million pound pay packages awarded to its top

executives.

Of 326 million votes cast, 147 million voted against the

remuneration package. Thomson Reuters (Frankfurt: TOC.F - news) data indicates Stelios

owns 147 million shares through a 25.9 percent stake and an 11

percent family holding through a company called Polys Holdings.

Stelios founded easyJet in 1995 before quitting the board in

2010 after a dispute over strategy. Since then he has been

critical of many of the airline's plans.

EasyJet has performed strongly in recent months and reported

annual profits up 51 percent in its financial year to last

September.

Its shares have risen 75 percent in the last year.

According to the company's annual report, published in

December, easyJet's chief executive Carolyn McCall in 2013 was

paid a base salary of 665,000 pounds ($1.10 million) and earned

a total 6.4 million pounds including a bonus and other benefit

and share awards, a figure nearly double than the year before.

McCall, who received the lowest protest vote of all the

directors, is popular among the majority of shareholders given

the strong growth in annual dividends and profit since she took

the helm in July 2010.

Last year did not see a repeat of the "shareholder spring"

of 2012 when shareholder activism was high as investors joined

forces to protest against pay packages and executives. This

year's season of annual meetings has just begun.

Some 148 shares were voted against easyJet's directors' pay

plans at last year's annual general meeting.