Cendant acquires major UK online agency, ebookers

Cendant Corporation has today announced the acquisition of ebookers, as part of its strategy of expanding its travel businesses in Europe. Last year, Cendant acquired Travel 2/Travel 4 one of the UK leading travel wholesalers for long-haul destinations. Earlier this year, Cendant acquired Flairview Travel based in Sydney, Australia which operates the HotelClub.com and RatesToGo.com on-line brands across 14 countries, offering over 13,000 hotels throughout Europe, Asia and Australasia. Last month, Cendant acquired Orbitz in the United States which, taken with its existing CheapTickets business, places it in the top two on-line travel retailers in that market. ebookers which attracts over 3.5 million unique visitors to its website each month will form part of Cendant’s Travel Distribution Services (TDS) division, reporting into its International Markets group headed by Gordon Wilson based in Langley in the UK. It will however be run as a separate entity within the division with its own CEO. Dinesh Dhamija, CEO and founder of ebookers will be leaving the business after the acquisition is completed but will remain available to Cendant in a consulting capacity for several months following completion. In addition to broadening Cendant TDS’ retail front , Wilson said, “The addition of ebookers to our growing portfolio, including Travel 2/Travel 4, Orbitz and Cheaptickets, as well as our hotel booking companies and the travel content available via other Cendant subsidiaries, we are successfully broadening our scale and relevance within the travel supply community, enabling us to secure a richer inventory for our agency partners. Our goal is to ensure that both for travel product suppliers and for our travel agency partners we offer value which is greater than purely processing transactions. It is for this reason, for example, that HotelClub inventory is now available not only to the consumer but also to travel agencies using Galileo. We envisage similar content and technology benefits benefiting the trade as a result of ebookers, whilst suppliers are presented with a genuine choice over how they want their products to be offered for sale in each of the direct and indirect channels in which Cendant operates.” The deal is expected to close, subject to customary relevant regulatory approvals, approvals by ebookers Shareholders and the sanction of the Scheme by the Court, sometime in the first quarter of 2005.