Travel management company Gray Dawes Travel is poised to make two acquisitions this week.
Speaking at a Travel Weekly Business Breakfast on mergers and acquisitions sponsored by Duff & Phelps and White Hart Associates, chief executive Suzanne Horner said Gray Dawes Travel was on track to become a business with “top-line sales of £100 million” by this Friday.
One acquisition involves a business with sales of £43 million and the other has sales of around £10 million, she said, while a third acquisition is also planned of a £45 million revenue business in the first quarter of next year.
Horner also revealed that at least one of the acquisitions was a “familiar name” in the UK and had a retail arm.
“One of the acquisitions we are looking at has a retail arm which we don’t have,” she added.
The privately-owned family business has been on an aggressive acquisition path, snapping up two businesses last year, and is one of the fastest-growing TMCs in the industry today. Financing for the deals is from the family business.
Horner said she hoped the business would be “knocking on the door of the top ten TMCs in the country” within the next two years.
The two acquisitions should also improve the company’s rankings of top TMCs in the UK from 29th place currently to 16th or 17th position, she added.