Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE), the private equity (PE) arm of Standard Chartered Bank, on Wednesday said that it has agreed to acquire South African media company Naspers Ltd’s stake in Travel Boutique Online (TBO) Group, an online business-to-business (B2B) travel distribution company.
Founded in 2006, with headquarters in India, TBO is a global travel technology company focused on providing a range of travel services to travel agents and tour operators across the world.
TBO leverages its proprietary online technology platform to distribute airline and hotel inventory to its customer travel agents.
Naspers first invested in TBO in 2012. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
“We are very happy to have SCPE as our partner as we embark on the next stage of TBO’s growth. Through leveraging SCPE’s extensive network and business planning expertise, we would be able to strengthen our position as a leading B2B travel distribution player in the global landscape,” said Ankush Nijhawan, co-founder of TBO Group.
With a revenue of about $1 billion, TBO serves more than 45,000 travel partners and claims to have expanded its operations to more than 90 countries.
“The overall B2B travel distribution landscape is ripe for consolidation and we believe that in partnership with SCPE we can leverage our strengths in technology and scale to drive this consolidation,” said Gaurav Bhatnagar, co-founder of TBO Group.
“We are extremely excited to partner with Ankush and Gaurav…who have built a profitable and scalable business with a strong market position. We look forward to supporting the company by leveraging our experience and network to drive the company’s growth strategy,” said Udai Dhawan, managing director at SCPE India.
Source: Mint