THE HOSEASONS family rejected approaches from the big operators in favour of a £22m management buyout in a bid to retain the company’s independence.
A five-strong senior management team headed by managing director Ken Gaylard engineered the buyout backed by venture capital firm ECIVentures.
In May Travel Weekly exclusively revealed Hoseasons was up for sale and Gaylard admitted it had beaten off serious offers from a number of large operators.
“There was interest at the outset but the desire was to keep the company independent,” he said.
Gaylard stressed that following the change of ownership, the Lowestoft company would remain independent. All 310 staff will continue in their present roles.
However, former owner and chairman Jim Hoseason, who is 71, now intends to retire from the business he has run since 1950.
It was founded in 1944 by his father Wally, who started out offering boating holidays on the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads.
Jim Hoseason’s son James, a director of the company, has accepted an undisclosed job in the US. He worked at Hoseasons for nine years.
The new chairman will be Ron Haylock, a non-executive director of Holiday Autos and a former managing director of RCI Europe and Inghams Travel.
Hoseasons sells more than 1m holidays a year. It had a turnover of £24m and made a pre-tax profit of £3.5m in the financial year to October 1998.
Gaylard said future plans for the company included featuring Ireland for 2000 following a break of five years.
He added that Ireland product would appear in the cottages brochure and the parks and lodges brochure, both due out this month, rather than in the company’s overseas brochure.
Based: Lowestoft.
Speciality: holiday parks, cottages, boating in the UK, holiday parks in Holland, Belgium and Germany and boating in France. Also owns All Canada Travel and Holidays and Hoseasons Marketing Systems.
Sales: 1m holidays a year.
Finances: £24m turnover and pre-tax profit of £3.5m in the financial year ending October 1998.
Staff: 310, all retained.
Management team: Ken Gaylard, managing director; Yvonne Borg, travel trade director; Tim Fullam, marketing director; Richard Overy, technology director, who also heads HMS; and Paul Temple, financial director. New chairman Ron Haylock.