Ryanair Holdings chief executive Michael O’Leary sold almost €21 million worth of shares in the airline group, personally and through his pension scheme this week, stock exchange statements show.
The carrier, Europe’s largest, recently reported that profits slipped 16 per cent to €1.61 billion in the 12 months to March 31st while it flew a record 200.2 million passengers.
Ryanair told the Euronext Dublin stock exchange that Mr O’Leary personally sold 846,726 shares at €23.33, worth €19.75 million in total, on Tuesday.
The company also informed the market that Fennor Pension Scheme, managed by Dublin stockbrokers, Davy, sold 53,167 shares at the same price, worth €1.24 million, also on Tuesday.
The scheme is understood to be Mr O’Leary’s. The filing describes it as a “person closely associated” with the Ryanair Holdings’ chief executive.
Mr O’Leary personally holds 44 million shares in Ryanair following the sale of his 846,726 units, which amounted to less than 2 per cent of his total stake in the airline. Ryanair has more than one billion shares in issue.
Late last month, Mr O’Leary qualified for share options currently worth more than €100 million when Ryanair’s shares closed at more than €21 for a 28th consecutive day.
Under a deal agreed with the company’s board in 2019, he must remain in his job until the end of July 2028, after which he has until the following February to take his option to buy the shares for €11.12 each.
Ryanair pays Mr O’Leary €1.2 million a-year plus a bonus of up to half that amount.
Speaking after Ryanair published full-year financial results in May, Mr O’Leary told analysts that he and the other company executives gave shareholders good value in an “era when premiership footballers and managers earn €25 million a-year”.
Ryanair blamed weakness in fares for the slip in profits. The airline believes that prices will recover during the current financial year, although delays in the delivery of aircraft will slow passenger growth.
It expects growth to normalise from 2026 and argues that it will be the only European airline adding “meaningful capacity” up to the end of this decade.
Mr O’Leary has run Ryanair since 1994, turning it from a loss-making regional airline to Europe’s biggest carrier by pioneering low-cost flying, ushering in a new era in air travel in the process.
He said last month that he intended to stay in the job until his current contract ends in 2028.
Stock exchange rules govern when directors, executives and others connected with publicly-listed companies can trade shares in those businesses.
These limit trades to periods when the company does not have access to important financial or other information that it has not yet made public.
