Spear Travels hopes to expand its high-street chain to 15 branches within five years and take on a further ten homeworkers.
The Yorkshire-based independent agency has just increased the size of its network to nine branches after buying Wolverhampton-based Roy Cox Travel.
It is poised to unveil a further acquisition in north Yorkshire in the next two months.
Managing director Peter Cookson said the group had a six-figure war chest and would not be against buying a miniple if it fitted its criteria.
Cookson, who bought the agency with wife Libby and co-owner Derek Adams in 2007, said: “We are open to offers. We have been given a pot of money by the bank to further our expansion but so far we have found the money ourselves.
“We have a decent, six-figure war chest, but we are very sensible and prudent with our acquisitions.
“I probably get half a dozen offers a month but many have gone beyond the point of no return, We have got to be realistic – we can manage it but there are still opportunities on the high-street as far as we are concerned.
“If a miniple came along we would consider it.”
The acquisition of Roy Cox Travel takes Spear Travels’ anticipated turnover in 2014 to approximately £15 million for the first time.
Spear Travels, established in 1983, now employs 45 staff at branches in Helmsley, Leyburn, Northallerton, Stokesley and Boroughbridge in Yorkshire as well as in Stoke, Wolverhampton and Upminster. It focuses on top end, long-haul and tailormade holidays.
The company has a network of 15 self-employed homeworkers and plans to recruit a further ten in the next year, said Cookson, who said the company had in the past has as many as 60 homeworkers.
“We pioneered homeworking in the UK; we took Abta to the High Court in 1993 to establish the principle of allowing homeworking,” he added.
The company pays homeworkers 70% of the commission they earn and allows them to take their clients with them should they decide to leave.
Cookson said: “They get all the back office systems and commercial deals as they would from other homeworking chains, but the big difference is that their clients belong to them. We also do not tell homeworkers they have to work a certain number of hours or days.”
The company is investing £80,000 into a new website, email services, IT upgrade and bespoke back office system and rebrand – it has already produced a new logo and is in the process of rolling it out across its shops.