Travelport Worldwide Limited (Travelport), a global technology company that powers travel bookings for hundreds of thousands of travel suppliers worldwide, has released that a group of its existing equity holders and lenders have agreed to invest US$570 million (£452 million) of new equity financing into the company. The new financing will give the company 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 the company is being made pursuant to an agreement that will significantly deleverage and strengthen the company’s balance sheet (the transaction). 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 well positioned to provide strategic counsel and support to the company’s management.
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 Deem, a leading corporate travel management platform, 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 groundbreaking, machine learning-powered search engine that normalises and personalises all sources of travel content.
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.
