Monday, October 26, 2009

Web Reservations International (WRI) up for sale for GBP 275mm (the Times)


The Times is reporting that Web Reservations International (WRI) is up for sale with a price tag of £275m.

WRI is owned by Ray Nolan and U2 Manager Paul McGuinnes. It operates

  • boo.com - the former fashion/clothing site and poster child for the dotcom bust in Europe is now a meta-search company
  • Hostelworld.com - online booking for hostels, backpakers and budget accommodation
  • Hostels.com - more hostels and backpacker bookings with content
  • Trav.com - more budget accomm including cheap hotels, motels, guesthouses, bed and breakfasts, youth hostels, holiday apartments, campsites, inns and lodges
The Times is saying that WRI has sales last year of €38m (£35m) and made a pre-tax profit of €18.3m.

thanks to joshhostels where I spotted the story first on Twitter and Hostelmanagement where he spotted it.
at

8 comments:

  1. Deep Throat26 October 2009 at 12:54 pm

    your group not interested or are they still playing with the Amadeus sandpit ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Josh26 October 2009 at 3:46 pm

    Thanks for the mention.

    I run HostelManagement.com by the way.

    The sale of WRI will definitely have a major effect on the hostel industry.

    --Josh
    ("@joshhostels" on Twitter)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pete Meyers27 October 2009 at 7:29 am

    Maybe Hostelbookers can raise a boatload of cash and take 'em over?

    I find it interesting that the revenue multiple for this potential sale (7.7x) is almost exactly the same as SideStep's for the Kayak deal. Although I don't recall seeing profit figures included for the SideStep transaction...ever hear of any?

    And I wonder what HW's asking price would have been 18 months ago.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Guillaume27 October 2009 at 10:15 pm

    I am not sure how The Times came out with this number of £275M valuation to sell the WRI businesses. By the look of it, they are looking at a multiple of 8 times the yearly revenue they do per year. Seems a bit much to me compared with other similars than happened in the last 5 years in Europe (Booking, Active Hotels, Venere...)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tim Hughes3 November 2009 at 4:31 pm

    @Guillaume - good point - chances are it was WRI talking themselves up to the journo

    ReplyDelete
  6. Travel India6 November 2009 at 11:06 pm

    This will be a major milestone in this concern......

    TravelIndia

    ReplyDelete
  7. Guillaume17 November 2009 at 7:23 pm

    So apparenty WRI was sold to private equity group Hellman & Friedman for a rumoured £200M transaction. Still puzzled about the valuation of the group though.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Josh24 November 2009 at 9:17 pm

    Techcrunch said today "about $340 million" (~220m euros at today's exchange rate).
    link

    ReplyDelete