Travel management company TravelPerk paid just under £80 million for its July 2021 acquisition of Click Travel, according to company accounts released this week.
The total consideration for the deal was £79,746,210 of which £57,541,180 was in cash, £21,500,000 in loan notes and £604,400 in directly attributable costs. The figures are revealed in the recently filed accounts for TK Operations Ltd, the vehicle which TravelPerk used to carry out the purchase.
Christopher Photi, head of travel and leisure at mergers and acquisition specialists White Hart Associates, says the acquisition does not appear to be a distressed sale.
Speaking to BTN Europe he said, “At an eight times pre-pandemic EBITDA multiple, the price paid is at the higher end of the corporate travel sales market we have seen in recent years. In the nine-month period to 31 December 2021, Click Travel’s performance significantly improved over the previous year. The business turnover increased to £100 million resulting in an EBITDA of circa £2.8 million. There were no reported additional loans or cash injections from banks or TravelPerk.”
He added, “Technology and sales volume were the likely drivers for the acquisition of Click Travel by TravelPerk. Given the technology strength of TravelPerk it was most likely a transaction driven to gain market share.”
Notes to the TK Operations accounts state: “Following the acquisition of Click Holdings Ltd and Click Travel Ltd on 5 July 2021, there has been a focus on integration between the TK Operations Group and the larger group of TravelPerk companies and aligning goals in order to capitalise on the continued recovery of the travel sector.”
TravelPerk recently confirmed to BTN Europe that the Click Travel brand is now being retired, with “day one of this taking place at this year's Business Travel Show for new prospects”.
The company’s UK & Ireland country lead, Vicki Williams, said: “The focus will now shift to the wider offering of the whole TravelPerk Group for all new and existing customers.”
Williams continued: “Communicating the retirement to legacy Click Travel customers has been an ongoing process since the acquisition was first announced back in July. TravelPerk are in regular contact with these customers to make sure they are all aware of the rebranding.
“There will be no immediate changes to logins and branded portals. TravelPerk is already involving customers in early discussions and working collaboratively to discuss future upgrades and new features.”
Click Travel was ranked 12th largest TMC in the UK in 2021 but did not appear in the 2022 edition of Europe's Leading TMCs, with its sales instead rolled up with those of TravelPerk ahead of the brand's retirement. With the additional volume, TravelPerk rose from 21st largest TMC in the UK in 2021 to 11th this year.
TravelPerk has raised more than $400 million (£335 million) in funding since its launch in 2015, including investment from Booking.com’s ex CEO Gillian Tans as well as Kinnevik and Spark Capital, which also invests in Slack, Trello and Twitter.
It has acquired US travel management platform NexTravel, travel information provider Albatross and corporate responsibility consultancy Susterra as well as Click Travel over the past two years.
In an interview conducted at Business Travel Show Europe in June, TravelPerk chief revenue officer Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo told BTN Europe the company was still on the acquisition trail.