Thomas Cook Acquires Kuoni Travel Business Units in India and Hong Kong

Thomas Cook (India) Ltd. is India’s largest integrated travel and travel related financial services company. It is a public limited company with its headquarters in Mumbai, India. It was founded in 1978, Te company’s offering include  a wide  range of services such as foreign exchange, corporate travel, MICE, leisure travel, insurance, visa  and product and e-business. Thomas Cook’s extends its services to over 232 locations that spread across  95 cities across India, Mauritius and Sri Lanka and is supported by a partner network of 115 Gold Circle Partners and 112 Preferred Sales Agents in over 130 cities across India. In May 2012, Fairfax  Financial Holdings Limited bought 77% stake in Thomas Cook India, through its wholly owned subsidiary Fairbridge Capital.

Recently Thomas Cook has entered into an agreement to buy Kuoni Group’s travel & tour business in India and Hong Kong. The deal of the acquisition was for an amount of Rs 535 Cr ($84 Million).Kuoni Travel is a tourism agency company founded in 1906 by the entrepreneur Alfred Kuoni in Zurich, Switzerland. The company specializes in providing luxury and tailor made products to its customers to make them travel to both the business and consumer markets. It also provides services such as visa processing, Charter and schedule passenger airlines, package holidays, cruise lines, hotels, and resorts to various destinations around the world.

In 2013, the Kuoni Group was named as “World’s Leading Luxury Tour Operator”.SOTC was India’s main outbound travel brand. Tis Indian based tour operator was acquired by Kuoni Travel in 1996. SOTC is known for its different kinds of travel segments such as Individual Travel, Escorted Tours, and Domestic Holidays and has about 80 franchisees spread across India.

The payment of the acquisition deal includes payment of Rs 320 Cr for Kuoni-SOTC (Indian arm) through internal accruals and Rs215 Cr for Kuoni’s Hong Kong business through a mix of debt and equity. Through its acquisition Thomas Cook will take on all of 1,800 employees of Kuoni’s business unit in India and Honk Kong tour operating to run its business activities as an independent company.