New investment comes from existing backers for Travelport's long-term success
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Travelport investors grant additional $570M to accelerate growth and innovation
Travel technology provider and GDS Travelport has announced that a group of its existing equity holders and lenders have agreed to invest $570 million of new equity financing into the Company.
The new financing will give Travelport a "robust capital structure", enable further investment into Travelport’s technology platforms and pave the way for other innovations to deliver new and "exceptional" ways for the travel industry to serve customers.
The new investment in Travelport has been agreed on the basis that it will "significantly deleverage and strengthen" its balance sheet.
Following completion of the Transaction, Travelport will have a new ownership structure composed of Travelport’s existing equity and credit investors, including Elliott Investment Management, Davidson Kempner Capital Management, Canyon Partners, Siris Capital and other leading institutional investors.
These investors will remain to provide strategic counsel and support to the Company’s management.
The transaction, which is subject to obtaining requisite consents and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, is expected to close by the end of the year.
“This investment demonstrates our investors’ support for Travelport and will advance our mission to reinvent a better future for the travel industry,” said Greg Webb, chief executive officer of Travelport.
“With this new investment, Travelport will have a strong balance sheet with the least amount of debt amongst its peers, which we believe will put the firm in an even better position for long-term, profitable growth.
"Most importantly, this Transaction will further strengthen our operating business and accelerate our investments in Travelport+ and other initiatives that make us the most innovative and agile partner to all our customers.
"We thank our investors for their significant vote of confidence in Travelport.”
In the last year, Travelport has undertaken several successful strategic investments and initiatives to enhance the technology, products and services it provides to customers.
These include the acquisition of corporate travel management Deem, as well as the upgrade of over 85% of the company’s agency customers to Travelport+.
The Transaction will enable further investment in customer offerings, including accelerating new developments in Travelport+, such as support for a wide range of carrier NDC offerings and the Content Curation Layer, the company’s machine learning-powered search engine that normalises and personalises all sources of travel content.
