Newmarket Holidays has announced private equity investment and new board members including ex-dnata Travel UK boss Ailsa Pollard as it targets “considerable growth”.
Soho Square Capital has invested an undisclosed sum in its first venture into the travel sector, while current owners Simon Hibbs, Jeremy Griffin, Toni Frei and chief executive Niel Alobaidi remain majority shareholders.
As part of the investment, Geoff Parkin, former senior partner at LEK Consulting, joins the operator’s board as chair. Parkin, who has travel and consumer sector experience, replaces Alan McWalter, who has stepped down after seven years.
Pollard, ex-chief executive of dnata Travel UK & Europe and a current Abta board member, joins as a non-executive director.
Soho Square Capital director David Steel also joins Newmarket Holidays’ executive board. He said: “With rapid growth, expanding margins and a very loyal customer base, Newmarket Holidays is going from strength to strength, and we are excited to be joining them on this journey.
“With our support and fresh perspective, we’re confident that we can help Newmarket to realise new opportunities and deliver considerable growth.”
Alobaidi, who invested in the escorted tour operator as a shareholder in 2022 after joining in 2019, said Soho Square Capital would have a “significant minority” stake in the business.
He said the owners had been attracted by Soho Square’s “flexible approach” to providing capital and expertise while allowing current management to stay in control of the business.
The investment follows two years of “phenomenal success” for the business, which has focused on organic growth, expanding its destination portfolio and replicating success it has had in established markets.
Speaking on a Travel Weekly webcast, Alobaidi said the funding and new appointments would bring “new energy” into the £70 million revenue business to help it expand further and seize new opportunities.
He said: “We are all really excited. Soho Square has worked in the consumer space – that was part of the excitement. That is really important and will bring a different mindset.”
He added: “We came out of the pandemic really strongly and delivered one of our best ever profits for 41 years in 2023. This year we are set to beat that significantly. We were looking for someone to help us on the next stage of it (growth) and find new opportunities.”
Alobaidi said Parkin would bring the “financial head” and “growth strategy” to help the business accelerate its plans while Pollard would bring travel industry knowledge and guide the company’s transition to where “we need to get to”.
He stressed the investment was not about changing the company’s growth plans or its focus on trade distribution.
“It’s about doing all the things we have done well and continuing in that space; the growth of long-haul [product] has been really important to us [and] we have really focused on the quality and service side.
“Everything has been on that trajectory of improving the quality of the product.”
He credited the trade as “really important” in helping to “guide us on where we want to go”. “None of it is about changing any of that. It’s about continuing to focus on that and more of the good stuff,” he added.
Areas for improvement include raising the operator’s brand profile, technology, such as AI, and data, he said.
“We are still relatively unknown for a brand of our size so there will be opportunities there to look at how we build the brand to support how we grow, both direct and through the trade,” he said, adding the business was traditionally focused on newspaper advertising.
“It was a very different business. We are now strong through the trade and building ourselves as a direct business.”
The independently-owned operator was founded in 1983 by Griffin and Frei, with Hibbs joining in 1984 as managing director. It is based in Wallington, Surrey, and has nearly 150 staff.