Tui Group has announced the completion of the sale of Hotelbeds for €1.19 billion to British investor Cinven Capital Management and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
The announcement marks the granting of all regulatory approvals for the deal, first announced in April, by the relevant authorities.
Tui said it “continues its transformation to an integrated tourism group with main focus on hotel and cruise businesses”
Fritz Joussen, Tui Group chief executive, said: “With the successful completion of the disposal, we are consistently continuing our strategy.
“TUI covers the whole tourism value chain, however, our investments focus on our own products that differentiate us from our competition.
“These are primarily hotel and cruise businesses. We will use the proceeds to continue our growth roadmap for our hotel and cruise portfolio and further strengthen our balance sheet.”
TUI will provide a strategy update, including details regarding the reinvestment of proceeds from the disposal, at the presentation of its results for financial year 2015/16 on December 8.
Hotelbeds said it is well positioned to “consolidate its leading position in some of the fast growing segments of the travel trade” under the leadership of executive chairman Joan Vilà and his management team and with the backing of strong investors.
Vilà said: “Becoming an independent company with the backing of Cinven and CPPIB now allows us to invest and focus strongly on our three core capabilities: technology, innovation and distribution – further enhancing our portfolio of revenue-generating services for customers, in particular in the fast-growing bedbank sector where we see strong growth and consolidation opportunities.”