New private equity owners for travel firm
A York-based travel company that offers escorted worldwide rail tour holidays is to be acquired by a new private equity owner.
Duke Street is to buy acquire Great Rail Journeys (GRJ) from ECI for an undisclosed sum.
GRJ offers almost 400 itineraries to over 50 countries globally.
It caters for a growing demographic group of culturally interested 55+ year old travellers with popular itineraries including a tour of India’s ‘Golden Triangle’, exploring the Swiss Alps on the Glacier Express and an iconic journey across Africa from Dar es Salaam to Cape Town.
It has more than 50,000 customers a year.
ECI invested in GRJ in March 2013 to help the company build on its market position and develop new areas for growth.
Over the last five years GRJ has performed strongly, tapping into new source markets for its rail tours including Australia and more recently the US, following the launch of an office in New York in 2017.
Duke Street plans to support the existing management team, led by Peter Liney, to develop the business’ rail and cruise offerings further, both in the UK and internationally.
Following the acquisition, Charles Gurassa will be appointed as chairman. As well as extensive experience of the travel sector gathered during his executive career, Gurassa’s current non-executive board roles include chairman of Channel 4, deputy chairman of Easyjet and senior independent director at Merlin Entertainments.
Peter Liney, CEO of Great Rail Journeys, said:
“We are delighted to be partnering with Duke Street. The team very quickly demonstrated a clear understanding of our business, and their experience both of growing businesses in the US and of river cruising was highly attractive to us. After five great years of working with ECI, who have helped us to internationalise the business, add new product lines, grow our profits and develop our management team, we are very excited to embark on the next chapter of our story with Duke Street.”
Tom Salmon, partner at Duke Street, said: “Our experience of backing market leaders in growing segments of the European leisure sector makes Great Rail Journeys a very exciting investment proposition. It is an outstanding business which delivers very high quality service to its clients. Having known Peter Liney for a number of years, we are looking forward to working with him, Charles Gurassa and the wider team to continue to grow the business both in the UK and internationally.”
Chris Watt, managing partner at ECI, said: “We are pleased to announce the sale of Great Rail Journeys to Duke Street. Today’s deal adds to our strong track record in helping travel companies to grow and realise their full potential.
“This has been a tremendously successful and enjoyable partnership working with Peter Liney and his team. Since 2013, Great Rail Journeys has achieved a huge amount with ECI’s support and today is the world’s leading company in the escorted rail holiday sector with an exciting future ahead of it.”
Great Rail Journeys was advised by Duff & Phelps (corporate finance), Travers Smith (legal) PwC (commercial) and Deloitte (financial and tax). Duke Street was advised by Harris Williams (corporate finance), Ropes & Gray (legal) and Alvarez & Marsal (financial and tax).
