Founding Shareholders of hotel.de AG sold 61.59% stake to HRS

Nuremberg, 14 October 2011. hotel.de AG announced that the founding shareholders of hotel.de AG have sold their shares in hotel.de AG, amounting to 61.59%, to HRS Hotel Reservation Service GmbH, Cologne.
2011_10_Hotelde_HRS
hotel.de AG, headquartered in Nuremberg/ Germany, operates one of world’s leading, independent hotel reservation services. The Company was established in 2001 and went public in October 2006. hotel.de offers business and private customers a platform to book hotels of all categories throughout the world at preferred rates. The service is available in 37 languages and free of charge at www.hotel.de and its international platform www.hotel.info or via the Company’s own multilingual 24-hour service center. The Company enables its customers to book approx. 210,000 hotels worldwide. In 2010, the Company recorded reservations exceeding a volume of Euro 390 million.

“This combination comes at exactly the right time, will boost hotel.de’s position in the global hotel portal business and provides us with a superb basis for our further development.”

– Dr. Heinz Raufer, CEO of hotel.de AG

“The Supervisory board of hotel.de is looking forward to the strategic alliance. Our brand will increase its awareness and our hotel and booking customers will gain several advantages by taking this step.”

– Dr. Stefan Morschheuser, Supervisory Board Chairman of hotel.de AG

This partnership will also benefit booking customers, who will obtain even better prices and availability levels in the future due to the sharp rise in reservation volumes, as well as being able to select their desired hotel from an even greater range of hotels worldwide. The hotels under contract, on the other hand, stand to benefit from further growth in booking volumes by corporate and private customers.

hotel.de AG will continue to be managed by its existing management team as a standalone company at its existing locations and will, as planned, maintain its expansion with its hotel.de brand in Germany and hotel.info brand abroad.

“Scale, reach and content are key in the fast growing online accommodation sector and the acquisition of hotel.de AG with its brands hotel.de and hotel.info will strengthen the leading market position of the HRS Group in the worldwide hotel reservation industry.”

– Malte von der Ropp, SVP at Corporate Finance Partners

“We very much enjoyed advising on that landmark transaction in the online travel industry and working together with the founding shareholders of hotel.de AG.”

– Klaus Wagner, SVP at CFP

Corporate Finance Partners – now ACXIT Capital Partners – acted as exclusive adviser to the founding shareholders of hotel.de AG in this transaction.

About hotel.de AG

hotel.de AG operates a global hotel reservation service for companies and private customers at its www.hotel.de and www.hotel.info addresses. Here, customers can book accommodation at more than 210,000 hotels in all categories easily, fast and at optimal prices. More than 4 million private and corporate customers worldwide place their trust in this service to book their hotels. When deciding on hotels, they can refer to more than 1.5 million personal hotel evaluations. Well-known companies, such as BASF, SAP AG, Texas Instruments, Ernst & Young AG, already use hotel.de’s corporate customer application to book hotels for business travel. hotel.de AG has its headquarters in Nuremberg, as well as a branch in Hamm (Westphalia) and sales offices in the UK (London), France (Paris), Spain (Barcelona), Italy (Rom), China (Shanghai) and Singapore. Founded in 2001, the company went public in 2006. In 2010, it handled reservations with a volume of more than Euro 390 million. (www.hotel.de)

About HRS Hotel Reservation Service GmbH

HRS operates a worldwide hotel portal for private and business travellers based on a database of more than 250,000 hotels in all categories in 180 different countries. Its free reservation service enables hotel accommodation to be booked online at the cheapest rates – and with a best-price guarantee. HRS Exclusive Prices also guarantee to be at least 10 percent cheaper than elsewhere. The job of choosing a hotel is facilitated by detailed descriptions of the hotels and more than 1.5 million hotel evaluations submitted by hotel guests. More than 20,000 companies regularly book their accommodation for business trips, conferences and group travel through HRS and benefit from special HRS corporate rates offering price reductions of up to 30 percent. HRS is the most powerful sales channel for the hotel industry, with some 90 million visitors to its site every year. (www.hrs.de)

About ACXIT

ACXIT Capital Partners is a leading independent corporate finance and investment advisory firm for mid-market clients and entrepreneurs in Europe and beyond. Since 1998, ACXIT offers its clients comprehensive corporate finance advisory services including M&A and capital markets advisory as well as restructuring, equity/debt and strategic advisory. As an independent, privately owned firm we maintain offices and representations in Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, Zurich, Hong Kong and New York, as well as strong alliances in France, China and India. (www.acxit.com)

 

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Dr. Hartmut Vennen
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