Helloworld completes Magellan acquisition

Helloworld has completed its acquisition of Magellan Travel Group.

In a statement posted on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), Helloworld CEO Andrew Burnes said: “We are delighted to welcome the 97 members and 129 agencies of the Magellan network to Helloworld Travel Limited.”

“We look forward to working with the Magellan members throughout Australia to deliver great outcomes for all stakeholders,” he added.

The acquisition was originally announced by Helloworld on December 19 of last year, who would acquire Magellan for $32.5 million.

At the time, Burnes said the company was consolidating their position in the retail and corporate travel agency business in Australia and seeking to leverage its on-going technology developments and supplier relationships.

He said, “We are delighted to welcome the 130 agents who are part of the Magellan network around Australia to the Helloworld Travel group.”

“Magellan has been established for nearly ten years and has a great network of members in both the leisure and corporate agency businesses.

“ADDING THE MAGELLAN NETWORK TO THE HELLOWORLD TRAVEL GROUP WILL IMPROVE THE SCALE OF OUR OPERATIONS THROUGHOUT AUSTRALIA AND GIVE MAGELLAN MEMBERS THE OPPORTUNITIES TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT SCALE AND AT THE SAME TIME BENEFIT FROM OUR SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENT IN TECHNOLOGY AND DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIES.”

The acquisition was then delayed on February 5 until late February.

“We initially believed the transaction would settle in January however due to some complexities with the Magellan membership structure it has taken longer than initially anticipated for Magellan to complete the transaction.

“We are confident that the transaction will now complete by the end of the month”, added Burnes.

Helloworld recently released its half-yearly results which found Helloworld’s (HLO) Total Transaction Value (TTV) grew by a solid 2.7 per cent.

According to the release accompanying the results, this growth was “underpinned by strong ticket volume growth, partially offset by lower airfare prices caused by airline discounting in Australia and New Zealand”.

While TTV saw growth, however, HLO’s revenue was $164.9 million, a decrease of 3.7 per cent.

The company has said this was “mainly due to the prior comparative period including revenue from the disposed air representation business, disposed of company-owned stores, and the restructured Insider Journeys business”.

“Revenue decreased by $1.6 million or 1.0% reflecting the continued lower airfare prices and mix change across business units and products,” the company said.

Following completion of the transaction, Helloworld Travel now has over 2,300 members in Australia and New Zealand, comprising over 1,800 retail and corporate agencies and over 470 travel brokers.

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Latest comments

frankies_boots says:
March 2, 2018 at 4:18 pm
I’ll spare Daisy an email discussion Hannah, thanks anyway. I was just observing that a key part of this story has been missing.
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Hannah Edensor says:
March 2, 2018 at 1:22 pm
Hi Frankie, would you like to get in contact with our editor Daisy Doctor at daisydoctor@travelweekly.com.au to discuss this further? We’d love to hear from you. Thank you.
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frankies_boots says:
March 2, 2018 at 11:33 am
Why has there been no mention in any of the stories concerning this acquisition that many Magellan members were against this deal and fought for better terms?
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