Alantra advised KKR on the acquisition of Travelopia

Jan 2017

Buy-side advisory

Value £325 million

Alantra has advised KKR on its agreement with TUI AG (TUI) to acquire Travelopia for £325m. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.

Travelopia, headquartered in the UK, is one of the world’s leading specialist travel groups, providing customers with unique experiences, such as sailing adventures, tailor-made holidays, sports tours, school expeditions, private jet travel and polar expedition cruises. Travelopia has a large international customer base of over 800,000 travellers each year and serves over 70 destinations globally through its 53 brands.

At Alantra, we are passionate advocates of specialist tour operators that excel in their niche. We believe Travelopia has an exciting future as it blossoms into a collection of market-leading, specialist travel brands.

Mattia Caprioli, Member & Head of Services at KKR Europe, said: “The high-end experiential travel market is underpinned by attractive structural growth drivers. These include the growing value consumers place on experiences over goods and the increasing mobility of older travelers. We believe that Travelopia is ideally positioned to benefit from these trends. We intend to leverage our experience in the leisure and travel sector gained through investments such as PortAventura, Get Your Guide, Trainline, Go-Jek and Apple Leisure, to support management in their strategic initiatives.”

Will Waggott, CEO of Travelopia, said: “KKR’s experience in the sector, global reach and digital expertise make it the perfect partner for Travelopia as we continue to grow. We have leading brands, loyal customers, deep destination expertise and a highly committed employee base, which puts us in a strong position to address the large and growing experiential travel market opportunity. I am very excited about the next chapter in Travelopia’s history and what it will offer our customers.”