Travel Horizon (France) - Dec 2007

unquote
01 December 2007

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Wellington Partners invested €10m in Travel Horizon for a 39% share of the online travel agents providing €6m in expansion in a deal which sees PartCom exit its 20% share of the company and sell to Wellington Partners for €4m. The management, which consists of five people, retains about 40% of the shares. Another 20% is retained by original investor HMC Hotels. Wellington Partners’ direct approach to Travel Horizon led to the management refraining from an LBO or taking the company public. The company turnover has steadily increased with €33m for the 2006/07 period and a predicted turnover of €40-45m for 2007/08 after the winter ski season. Further potential revenue will come from new acquisitions such as Belgian company Halloween, newly-acquired German company Kollner Klub and another acquisition due to be announced at the time of going to press.

Company

Travel Horizon, the Aix-en-Provence- and Amsterdam-based online holiday operator, came into being when Nicolas Mendiharat’s company Ski Horizon, which technically received the first round of investment from HMC Hotels and PartCom bought back one of his earlier companies, Totem Voyages, from Nouvelles Frontiers in 2002 forming the Travel Horizon group. Travel Horizon now also includes Spahorizon, Halloween and Kollner Klub.

People

Nicolas Mendiharat is the CEO of Travel Horizon. Eric Archambeau worked on the deal on behalf of Wellington Partners. Philippe Burgué is CEO of HMC Hotels.

Advisers

Vendor - Jones Day, (Legal)

Sourced from: France unquote" 88 (Feb 2008)