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Travelport is Acquired: Siris Capital Group and Evengreen Coast Capital, private equity affiliate of Elliot Management Corp., have announced completion of their buyout of the UK-based GDS operator Travelport. The price tag was $4.4 billion. The headquarters of Travelport, which once owned GTA, Travelport’s headquarters will remain in Langley, Berkshire, following the acquisition, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2019and is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by Travelport shareholders and receipt of required regulatory approvals. Once the transaction is completed, Travelport will become a privately held company and Travelport common shares will no longer be listed on any public market.
- LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, better known as LVMH, a French multinational luxury goods conglomerate headquartered in Paris, has entered into a definitive agreement for LVMH to acquire UK-based Belmond, a hotel and leisure travel products company that operates luxury hotels, trains and river cruises in 24 countries around the world. The company was formerly known as Orient-Express Hotels Ltd.The deal—LVMH is paying $2.6 billion got the acquisition—is expected to be completed in the first half of 2019.
- Adventure tour operator G Adventures has acquired small-group youth travel specialist, UK-based TruTravels. Its customers are mainly young travelers ages 18 to 25. Joe Fallon and Mark Pope, who founded the company in 2012, will continue to run TruTravels as partners and minority shareholders. G Adventures founder and owner Bruce Poon Tip says that he views TruTravels as a “complementary business.” TruTravels has 25 employees in southwest London plus 40 tour guides across Asia. With the G Adventures acquisition, TruTravels now plans to expand its sales team. G Adventures will support TruTravels in extending its supply chain access, as well as with shared resourcing in technology, talent acquisition and finance.
- Double Deck Tours in Niagara Falls has been purchased by Ambassatours, a sightseeing tour company from Eastern Canada. With the purchase, Ambassatours says it has become the world’s largest owner-operator of vintage routemaster double decker buses. Bert Watson, whose family owned Double Deck for 54 years sold the company after having it in his family for three generations. He said that “from the start, we felt we could trust Ambassatours to honor our half century commitment to presenting Niagara Falls through the vantage points afforded by our classic, British double decker buses.” Double Deck Tours will continue to operate under its already established brand and with the new owner-operator in place they will be looking to expand its sightseeing tours and charter buses. Ambassatours has also announced that its founder’s grandson, Dustin Watson, will be the new service manager for Double Deck Tours and Terri McCulloch will be the team’s general manager starting in the spring of 2019.
