Yatra strengthens position in corporate travel with acquisition of Air Travel Bureau
Yatra has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement, through its subsidiary, Yatra Online, under which it will acquire Air Travel Bureau (ATB), which is India’s largest independent corporate travel services provider with gross bookings of INR 15 billion generated through a diverse client base of over 400 large and medium sized businesses across India. “This acquisition significantly strengthens our position in the large and growing corporate travel market in India. We believe that as a combined entity, we are now the largest corporate travel services platform in India by gross bookings. This acquisition will allow us to deliver best-in-class experiences to an even wider set of travellers, through our web and mobile app platforms and enhance our reach to cross-sell our entire product suite, including hotels, to this customer base,” said Dhruv Shringi, co-founder and CEO, Yatra Online.
“ATB has built a very strong presence over the last 30 years in the corporate travel space. We’re excited for ATB to join the Yatra family and for our teams to work together to further enhance the offerings we provide to our customers and partners by leveraging Yatra’s technology platform and large hotel network,” said Sunil Narain, chairman and CEO, ATB.
The boards of directors of both companies have approved the transaction. The first closing to acquire majority of the outstanding shares is expected to occur by mid-August, 2017 and the second closing is expected to occur in Q2 of the 2018 calendar year, subject to other customary closing conditions. Pursuant to the terms of the definitive agreement, Yatra has agreed to acquire all of the outstanding shares of ATB and assume its debt.