Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has appointed Investec to advise him on a possible initial public offering of his easyHotel chain this summer.

The Times understands that the founder of easyJet will reduce his 100 per cent stake in the budget hotel business to below 50 per cent as part of the proposed AIM listing.

Although easyHotel is a franchise based business. Sir Stelios company also owns some of the underlying property assets, serving to beef up the value of the company.