For Bravofly Rumbo Group, the acquisition fulfills its mission to be a Smart Travel Provider, simplifying the life of travellers and accelerating the growth of its global footprint and its portfolio of solutions.
SOUTHLAKE, TEXAS and AMSTERDAM – Sabre Corporation and Bravofly Rumbo Group announced that Bravofly Rumbo Group has completed the acquisition of lastminute.com, following its binding offer for the business in December 2014 and fulfillment of the employee information and consultation process.
With this transaction Bravofly Rumbo Group acquires all of lastminute.com’s global operations located in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, establishing a leading position in all major European countries. Together with lastminute.com, Bravofly Rumbo Group’s 2014 pro-forma Gross Travel Value reached approximately 2.5 billion euros, with revenues of nearly 260 million euros, leveraging its excellent business fit and well balanced geographical distribution. The transaction has no material effect on Bravofly Rumbo Group’s net cash position.
The decision to sell lastminute.com supports Sabre’s strategy to increase its focus and investment on its core businesses – Travel Network and Airline and Hospitality Solutions – which collectively serve airlines, hotels, travel agencies and travel suppliers globally. Sabre remains a key provider of services to the global consumer online travel sector, handling over a third of the world’s travel agency transactions.
For Bravofly Rumbo Group, the acquisition fulfills its mission to be a Smart Travel Provider, simplifying the life of travellers and accelerating the growth of its global footprint and its portfolio of solutions.
Fabio Cannavale, chairman of Bravofly Rumbo Group, said: “We are at the beginning of a new, exciting and unconventional phase in which we have the opportunity to build a long-lasting, successful business story.
lastminute.com’s iconic and extremely popular brand combined with our capability to execute, is a cornerstone that will empower our teams to do their best, be spontaneous and achieve our ambitious target to be the unconventional leader of the European market with 5 billion euros GTV in 2020.
We will seek to boost robust topline revenue growth by making relevant investments in online and offline marketing and advertising around Europe, to position lastminute.com as the Group’s main brand, as well as supporting our historical brands by re-styling and focusing them on vertical markets. At the same time we will work hard to integrate our businesses, creating scalable and efficient structures which generate sustainable value in the mid to long term. I’m really proud to be part of this story and I know our people are excited to start.”
Bravofly Rumbo Group will communicate further details of its long-term integration roadmap and respective Group targets in its FY2014 earnings data, scheduled for release on March 26th, 2015.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
