COLLAPSE
THOMAS COOK
THOMAS COOK: WHO WAS WHO
Terry Fisher: founded travel
agency chain Travelworld which
he sold to Airtours (subsequently rebranded MyTravel) in 1998. Ran Airtours’ agency chain Going Places until 2001. In 2006, he became managing director of Gold Medal. Thomas Cook took over Airtours/MyTravel in 2007 and acquired Gold Medal, with Fisher, in 2008. Fisher was group head of scheduled services at Cook when he resigned in December 2010.
Manny Fontenla-
Novoa: joined Cook in 1972 and left for International Leisure
Group in 1988. ILG collapsed in 1991 and Fontenla-Novoa co- founded tour operator Sunworld with ILG colleague and future First Choice and Tui chief Peter Long. Cook acquired Sunworld in 1996. Fontenla-Novoa appointed chief executive in 2003. Resigned 2011.
Frank Meysman: former marketing
director of Douwe Egberts, chairman
of a Dutch engineering consultancy, head of the Belgian advertising standards board and chairman of Dutch business supplies firm Corporate Express. Became Cook chairman in December 2011.
Harriet Green: joined from electronic
components industry as chief executive in
July 2012. Left in November 2014.
Peter Fankhauser: joined from Kuoni in 2001. Became chief operating officer in
November 2013 and chief executive in November 2014.
Continued from page 80
group was the UK business and the only way to save Tomas Cook was to take out the debt because it would weigh like an anchor on the business, dragging it down. “We proposed selling off all the
businesses outside the UK. We estimated at the time this would raise £1 billion to £1.5 billion to pay down the debt, pay down the pension fund liability and fund a turnaround plan in the UK.” He explained: “Tere were several
elements to the problems. First, the merger between Airtours and Tomas Cook in 2007 was flawed. It strategically confused Tomas Cook about what it was in the UK. Forget the financial issues. Cook was trying to be a vertically integrated tour operator to compete with Tui. But staff in the agencies saw Cook as a travel agency business selling independent product. “Second, the tour operator
business was heavily biased towards the eastern Mediterranean and did not have the best inventory. Tomas Cook was operating with one hand tied behind its back. “On top of that, the business
had recklessly doubled its UK travel agency network [through its merger with Te Co-operative Travel in 2011] when it should have been investing in its website. Tomas Cook was unquestionably the biggest brand in travel. With investment it could have been a serious rival to Expedia and other online travel agents.”
‘Cook had too many stores’
Te rescue plan was ready to present to the Tomas Cook board in early 2012, having been drawn up from “information in the public domain, annual reports and Terry’s first-hand experience as a senior executive in the business”. Jacobs summarised the proposal: “We would sell off the other
78 3 OCTOBER 2019
Clive Jacobs, Jacobs Media Group
We did not think
it would be easy, but we believed Cook would have a fighting chance
businesses to fix the UK business. Cook had too many agencies and too many properties [in the UK]. It was operating out of way too many sites. It had a UK airline where 20% of its take-offs and landings involved ‘ghost’ flights [empty aircraſt] because of bad positioning.” He insisted: “We did not think it
would be easy, but we believed Cook would have a fighting chance. “Ten we went with Invesco to
meet the Tomas Cook chairman, Frank Meysman.” Jacobs believes the chairman
“wasn’t prepared to listen”. He was shocked days later when the meeting was reported in the Financial Times, believing the details must have been leaked. Jacobs noted: “Te share price rose and put some hunger back into [Tomas Cook’s] shareholders. I’m not sure the board ever got to hear of our plan. I can’t say whether
the board made a judgement on it.” He points out: “Tis was a
business in deep, deep trouble, with its balance sheet inflated by intangibles and at the mercy of accountants and bankers who stood to profit from its woes. “With the business in such a
precarious position, what the board did next was hire someone as chief executive [Harriet Green] who had no experience of turning around a business of that size and scale and no experience of the travel industry. “Cook already had a chairman
[Meysman] who had no travel experience and who had never been a chief executive.” Jacobs said: “I felt the chairman did not have a full understanding of the business.”
‘Highly dysfunctional’
Jacobs added: “It’s a travesty to see a company with a more than 100-year legacy vanish through poor management and bad decisions. “My motivation, and Terry’s,
was to rescue the business. Te German and Scandinavian businesses were sound, vertically integrated businesses that were well-oiled and running very well without the
travelweekly.co.uk
PICTURES: Paul Broadrick; Matt Sprake; Shutterstock
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
