Sales and profits take off at Travel Jigsaw
ONLINE car hire firm Travel Jigsaw continued to increase market share during its first full year as part of the US group Priceline.com.
Newly-filed accounts for the year to December 31 show pre-tax profits climbed from £5.7m to £18.1m on sales of £261.2m, up 66%. Staff numbers jumped from 338 to 429 during the period.
The Manchester business was bought in May 2010 by Priceline.com which is understood to have paid around £90m.
In their report the directors said: “The market for online car hire has continued to increase during the year with the company increasing both the range of suppliers represented and the geographic markets in which it operates.”
In January the business acquired rentalcars.com for £9.1m from Lowestfare.com, another Priceline unit, and has expanded its reach to 38 languages. It now has a multi-lingual call centre in Manchester.
The directors added: “We expect the general level of activity to continue to grow as we continue to build on our current marketing strategies and developing our relationships with our current and new business partners.”
Travel Jigsaw was founded in 2004 and was originally backed by Airtours founder David Crossland.
He exited in 2008 when private equity firm ISIS led a buyout which valued the business at £28m.
