Traveljigsaw refinances for growth
INTERNATIONAL car hire group Traveljigsaw, has undergone a multi-million pound refinancing deal.
The new arrangement sees Yorkshire Bank more than double the £8m it lent the Manchester business at the time of a £28m buyout by private equity firm ISIS Equity Partners in June 2008.
The bank’s corporate and structured finance team has provided the additional funding in a transaction which has seen ISIS realise part of its investment.
Both Yorkshire Bank and ISIS first invested in Traveljigsaw when they supported a management buy-out in June 2008.
The 2008 deal gave control to the ex-MyTravel team who had founded the business four years earlier and provided an exit for the original investor, Airtours founder David Crossland who had provided the start-up capital.
Traveljigsaw is now one of Europe’s largest independent car rental agents, offering customers a single source for car hire via an online booking service and a UK-based multi-lingual call centre. In this country it trades as CarHire3000.com.
The business has relationships with all major car rental operators and offers car hire to customers in 27 different countries, covering some 90 different destination countries.
Ian Mansell and Ian Howey led the deal for Yorkshire Bank out of its Birmingham office.
Mr Howey said: “Traveljigsaw’s experienced management team, together with ISIS’s knowledge of the sector, have helped the business to achieve strong growth in both turnover and profits.
“The new funding package reflects the phenomenal growth that the management team has achieved and provides Traveljigsaw with the funds to support its ongoing expansion.”
