Specialist Travel Group launched

Haines Watts partner Colin Segal is planning a radical approach to the way in which UK tour operators work with the forthcoming launch of a new company on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM). Segal, who joined the leading accountancy firm earlier this month to head up its Travel Related Services Division, has spent the last year finalising the details for his Specialist Travel Group (STG) together with entrepreneur Gerry Samuels of Travel Capital, a provider of venture capital to the travel and technology sectors. STG, which plans to float on AIM during 2005, will use the funds raised to identify and acquire businesses, predominantly privately-owned niche tour operators, with sustainable post-tax profits of £500,000 (before directors’ fees and expenses). These will then be merged, databases shared for cross-selling and resources pooled to boost their trading performance. Over £10 million worth of additional capital will be raised from both institutional and private investors. Explains Segal: “While the travel sector in general has had another tough 12 months, there are still many excellent niche operators who continue to expand their programmes but are stifled by the availability of cash resources to weather the storm in difficult times. “It appears that everyone is using the same template of developing websites, producing brochures and advertising to win business. By bringing these businesses together, sharing databases for cross selling and pooling resources value can be added to the trading results.”