easyJet FD to run Europe's biggest budget fleet
Chris Walton, finance director of easyJet, saw his workload take off last week as a result of the budget airline's takeover of rival Go, announced last week, .
The company, which will now become Europe’s largest budget airline, confirmed last week that Walton would become finance chief of the enlarged group.
Andrew Cowen, his counterpart at Go, is to leave once the deal is completed. Cowen, however, will not be unhappy. He and other executives at Go are understood to have become millionaires as a result of the deal, which values the airline – which was the subject of a £110m buyout from British Airways last year – at £374m.
Walton, who is Australian and holds a pilot’s licence, is not a qualified accountant, although he holds an MBA.
KPMG, easyJet’s auditor since 1998, will also be a winner, at the cost of rival Deloitte & Touche, which was appointed auditor to Go last November.
EasyJet confirmed this week that KPMG would be retained as auditor of the enlarged group and Deloittes dropped. Both firms declined to comment.