5 HOT STORIES NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
This week’s top stories: 1. Dnata takeover 2. Tui add-ons provider 3. Abta awards bursary 4. Flood victim seeks £50k 5. ‘Fight unjustified claims’
1 Lee Hayhurst
Dnata has said it will retain the head offices of both Gold Medal and Travel 2 following European regulatory approval for its takeover of Stella Travel Services. The deal was due to be finalised
as Travel Weekly went to press. Asked about the overlap between
trade suppliers Travel 2 and Gold Medal, which dnata acquired from Thomas Cook in February, vice-president Iain Andrew said: “Some synergies will be there. But we will look at the easy synergies first and that is going to be about procurement savings. “We are very happy with the Glasgow
[Travel 2] operation; we are very happy with the Preston [Gold Medal] operation. I see those being there for the future.” Andrew added: “We will continue
trading as we are until the first or second quarter next year, then we will look for some sensible synergies across the group.”
Speaking at a Travel Weekly Business
Breakfast on Tuesday, Andrew said the group would first focus on the
4 •
travelweekly.co.uk — 16 October 2014
Iain Andrews:
‘We very much want to leave them to their own devices’
Dnata: Travel 2 and Gold Medal offices ‘will be there for future’
peak turn-of-year trading period. He said: “We don’t have an engine in the Middle East that we can pop into these companies. We buy them because of their own engines, so it would be very unwise for us to do any heart surgery on them. “We very much want to leave them to
their own devices. We want to support them. We have capital to help them grow. We want to let them run fairly independently.” Andrew said dnata was looking at other parts of the world, including Asia, South America and Russia, for further acquisition targets. He said increased acquisition activity in the UK had pushed up prices over the past two to three years. “As a group we have a fair amount of assets in the UK so we are looking at other parts of the world. “Maybe [we’ll look at] product out of the UK, but in distribution we’re happy with what we’ve got. “It’s a shame, because I have a lot of
respect for the assets that have become available in the UK.” ❯ Dnata gets go-ahead, page 76
PICTURE: MATT SPRAKE
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