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Thomas Cook’s Nordic business lives on after private equity deal

A trio of investors—including two private equity firms—has teamed up to save Thomas Cook’s Nordic business a month after the British travel company suddenly declared bankruptcy, delisted its shares, ceased operations and stranded more than 150,000 customers.

European buyout firms Altor Equity Partners and TDR Capital, along with Norwegian real estate tycoon Petter Stordalen’s Strawberry Group, are slated to assume ownership of the Ving Group, as the Northern Europe unit is called. The group employs 2,300 people across charter businesses in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, along with Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia.

Strawberry Group and Altor will each buy 40 percent of Ving, while TDR Capital will purchase the remaining 20 percent, though no price was revealed. Following the acquisition, the investors will work to secure approximately 6 billion Swedish kronor (about $618 million) in liquidity and guarantees for the business.

Unlike the larger Thomas Cook Group, which was founded in the 1840s to serve the burgeoning British middle class, Ving has recently proved itself profitable. Some of the Ving units will declare bankruptcy in order to facilitate the redirection of all businesses to a freshly established company created by its new owners, but the company’s sale will ensure 400,000 people who have booked upcoming trips will be able to travel without issue.

“[The deal] secures the business and creates a stable foundation for future development,” Harald Mix, a partner at Altor, said in a statement.

Altor, based in Stockholm, has raised five funds since its creation in 2003. It has invested in more than 60 middle-market Northern European companies, worth a total of €8.3 billion (about $9.25 billion).

TDR Capital, founded in 2002, manages €8 billion in assets and is headquartered in London. It also focuses on mid-market companies, with a preference for growth-oriented investments.

Strawberry Group maintains 11 companies and invests primarily across the real estate, finance, hospitality and art industries. Stordalen is a Norwegian billionaire who, along with his three children, also owns the region’s largest resort chain, Nordic Choice Hotels. The brand operates 180 luxury hotels across five countries.

The buyout of Thomas Cook’s Nordic unit may be one of the more dramatic deals in recent memory, but it fits cleanly into the bigger picture of the region’s PE landscape. Nordic dealmakers such as Altor have maintained a relatively consistent slice of the European private equity pie over the past decade. As of September 30, Nordic PE deal value this year totaled about €26 billion, about 11% of overall European deal value, per PitchBook’s 3Q 2019 European PE Breakdown. Through the past decade, the Nordic region’s deals have largely hovered around that same share of the total.

 

Read More – www.pitchbook.com

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Thomas Cook agrees terms of £900m rescue deal with Fosun

Thomas Cook has confirmed the terms of a £900m rescue deal that will give the Chinese conglomerate Fosun control of its holiday business – but warned its shares may be pulled from the London stock market as a result.

The Chinese investor Fosun will inject £450m into the business in exchange for a 75% stake in its 178-year-old package tour division and a 25% holding in its airline business.

The rescue package will give the Shanghai-based Fosun another foothold in the European market, where it already owns the holiday resort chain Club Med and the Premier League football club Wolverhampton Wanderers. Fosun holds an 18% stake in Thomas Cook.

Read more – www.theguardian.com

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Is Thomas Cook about to collapse?

A leading analyst has cast doubt over whether Thomas Cook’s £750m rescue plan, announced at the end of last week, will work.

Citigroup’s James Ainley suggested the package, which would put Chinese conglomerate Fosun in control of the 178-year-old tour operator, could be blocked by its bondholders.

So how has it come to this and should holidaymakers be concerned?

What has happened to Thomas Cook?

The travel company, which employs 21,000 staff around the world and operates more than 560 stores in the UK, has “suffered as customers shifted from the high street to the internet, threatening its ability to service a £1.6bn debt pile”, says the Financial Times. It came close to collapse eight years ago and took on large loans to survive.

 

“Tough trading conditions have been exacerbated by Brexit uncertainty,” adds the FT.

Last Friday, the embattled company confirmed that it was in “advanced discussions” to secure new funding from its banks and Fosun, which owns the holiday resort chain Club Med. The £750m deal would hand control of its package holiday business to the Shanghai-based investor in return for a cash injection. Meanwhile, banks and bondholders would take a majority stake in its airline and a minority stake in the holiday unit.

The extra cash “is designed to see the company through the winter, when holiday bookings are at their lowest, affording it time to cut costs and raise money by selling its airline division”, explains The Guardian.

Will the deal go ahead?

Citigroup analyst James Ainley, described by The Daily Telegraph as “one of Thomas Cook’s most vocal critics”, has calculated that shares would be worth just 3p if the plan goes ahead.

“The uncertainties are significant and the risk of the process stalling seems high,” said Ainley, who sent shares in the company plunging in May by downgrading its stock to zero pence.

For the package to work, Thomas Cook needs a “strong turnaround plan, about which little detail has yet been given”, he added.

A spokesman for Thomas Cook said: “The board is clear in its view that it is in the best interests of all the group’s stakeholders, including bondholders, to pursue a full re-capitalisation supported by new investment into the business. It is a pragmatic and responsible solution which provides the means to secure the future of Thomas Cook.”

Should holidaymakers be worried?

On Friday, Peter Fankhauser, Thomas Cook’s chief executive, said there would be “no impact from today’s announcement on our holidays or our flights”.

Meanwhile, holidays booked through Thomas Cook are Atol-protected, meaning any customer would be entitled to a full refund or replacement holiday should the tour operator collapse before their scheduled departure time.

The Civil Aviation Authority would also protect package holidays and cover arrangements to return customers if the operator collapsed while they were on holiday.

However, some holidaymakers could be caught out if they have booked on Thomas Cook’s airline, which is separate from the tour operator, and sells flight-only trips, some of which are not Atol-protected.

 

Read More – www.theweek.co.uk