Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou to give away more than half of his 1.3 billion dollar fortune

In an official statement Greek born entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has committed to giving away more than half of his fortune (worth 1.37 billion USD according to Forbes) as part of the international organisation Giving Pledge.

The 50 year old founder of budget airline easyjet, easyGroup and the Stelios Haji-Ioannou Foundation, which supports poverty relief in Greece and Cyprus, has become the latest member in a group which includes Sir Richard Branson and Mark Zuckerberg, to pledge more than half of their fortune towards philanthropic purposes, either in the duration of their lifetime, or as part of their will, and is the only member from Cyprus.

Founded by Bill and Melinda Gates, and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett in 2010, Giving Pledge aims to get the world’s wealthiest people to give away the majority of their fortunes. It currently consists of 168 members from all around the world.

In a letter accompanying his pledge, Haji-Ioannou said: “Allow me to start by saying that I am not sure I am a worthy member of this group of extraordinary individuals. I consider that I have been lucky in life at least twice,” he said.

“I inherited some wealth from my father, a self-made Greek-Cypriot shipping magnate, and then I was lucky enough to have been at the right place at the right time to start a business that did much better than I ever could have hoped.”

Haji-Ioannou, who resides in Monaco, said he would distribute his wealth through his philanthropic foundation, which funds projects in places where he has lived and worked. These include food donations in Greece and projects to reconcile differences between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots in the country of his birth, also scholarships to the London School of Economics and City University, annual donations to the Red Cross and World Wildlife Fund.

“I guess my belief is that nobody has a monopoly on good charitable ideas and the problems in our world will never all go away,” he said. “So we have to keep helping, within our means, forever.” He also added that he had been “inspired” by his phone call from Gates, the world’s richest man with an estimated fortune of $88.5bn.