Five offers have been made for the tour operating businesses run by specialist luxury travel group Western & Oriental. The disclosure came this morning in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.
“As part of the strategic review initiated by the previous board, a number of parties have expressed interest to acquire the tour operating business of the company and as a result five offers for the business have been received,” the company said.
“Having evaluated these offers the board has concluded that it will proceed with two of the parties, being those who had made the highest offers and having minimal conditions.”
The sale is due to be completed by the end of February. Director Raj Kumar has agreed to extend a shareholder loan to the company until that date “to ensure that the company is able to proceed with an appropriate sale of the business during this period”.
“The transaction will result in the company disposing of the brands and assets relating to the tour operating business, including forward bookings and customer monies relating to those bookings,” W&O said.
The tailormade holiday group, which runs brands such as Regent Holidays, key2holidays and iceland2go in addition to a conference, incentive and business travel unit, saw former chairman Andrew Neil step down last week after less than two months.
He has now been replaced by Pavlos Savvides but W&O announced that director Jeremy Goldberg has resigned. The company said further details over the disposals will be announced “in due course”.