Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advises travel-IT on selling majority stake to Travelport

In the course of a capital increase, Travelport acquired a majority interest in travel-IT Beteiligungsgesellschaft. travel-IT was advised by Dr. Jörg aus der Fünten, partner at the Cologne office of commercial law firm Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek. The acquisition of 54.3 percent of the shares means Travelport's entry into the sale of tour operator services in Germany. The company aims to significantly increase its presence in the German travel market.
 
In tourist travel, tour operators have traditionally played a major role in Germany since they are offering their content, either on a pre-packaged or dynamically packaged basis. travel-IT, specialist for the sales of tour operator services, provides a platform that enables the offer, search and booking of the unique content from all the major operators serving Germany, to consumers who purchase from travel retailers.
 
Travelport is a travel commerce platform providing distribution, technology, payment and other solutions for the global travel and tourism industry. The acquisition is designed to extend the Travel Commerce Platform by the travel-IT services. In addition, Travelport makes content available from some 400 network and low cost airlines, 600,000 individual hotel properties, all the major car rental companies and a host of other travel related content on the platform. The new commerce platform will allow tour operators, in turn, to offer a full range of product and content to both traditional and online retail travel agencies. With a presence in over 170 countries and approximately 3,400 employees, the privately held company, headquartered in Langley, Great Britain, generated net revenue of $2.1 billion in 2013.
 
Counsel to travel-IT Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH
Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek:
Dr. Jörg aus der Fünten (Corporate/M&A), Cologne