Michael O’Leary earns €6.4m from share sale

Ryanair Holdings chief executive Michael O’Leary earned more than €6.4 million before tax from cashing in share options in the airline, a statement shows.

The airline, Europe’s biggest, this week reported that it earned a record €1.37 billion profit in the six months ended September 30th, the first half of its financial year.

An Irish Stock Exchange statement on Tuesday showed that Mr O’Leary earned €6.4125 million before tax from cashing in options over 1.5 million Ryanair Holdings shares.

He exercised the options at €8.345, costing a total of €12.5175 million and sold the shares at €12.62, or €18.93 million.

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He completed the transaction on Tuesday November 8th according to the statement. A similar exercise in September earned him €4 million before tax. Mr O’Leary’s pay was cut during the pandemic.

Mr O’Leary owns 3.9 per cent of Ryanair Holdings. In 2019 he agreed a five-year contract with the company under which he halved his basic pay to €500,000 annually.

That deal included options to buy 10 million of its shares at €11.12 each, if Ryanair’s net profit topped €2 billion in any of the years of the contract term, or if its share price exceeded €21 for a period of 28 days between April of this year and March 2024.

Mr O’Leary recently agreed that Ryanair was very unlikely to reach either target this year.

On Monday he said that the airline could earn between €1 billion and €1.2 billion profit in its current financial year, which ends on March 31st, if Covid or geopolitical troubles did not cause further shocks in coming months.

High oil prices and inflation have put airline shares under pressure recently while the industry has regularly fallen in and out of favour with investors since Covid-19′s outbreak in 2020.

The record €1.37 billion profit that Ryanair report this week covered the key summer months. Mr O’Leary said the airline could lose between €100 million and €200 million through the winter.

Ryanair intends restoring full pre-Covid pay to workers in December, instead of April 2023, the date agreed in talks with most of its unions earlier this year.

The airline kept on staff on reduced wages through the pandemic, enabling it to boost capacity ahead of this summer and cash in on renewed demand for flying across Europe.