How Stelios lost £80m in just 24 months

It may have undergone something of a revamp recently but EasyInternetCafe - né the easyEverything chain of web plus latte outlets - has lost money hand over fist in the last two years.

Originally set up with ISP PSINet and HP to exploit the need for convenient, high street net access, this morning's FT says it can reveal EasyInternetCafé lost entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou business empire £80m during 2001 and 2002.

Despite the losses, Haji-Ioannou reckons the internet cafés have a future and parent company easyGroup is committed to them for at least another year.

The outlets are expected to have a total turnover of about £10m in 2003 and the media friendly Stelios has been talking up smaller EasyInternetCafé units within other high street businesses such as McDonalds restaurants.