eDreams Odigeo has announced its intention to list on the stock exchanges in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia.
The Spain-based online travel agency operates five brands including eDreams, Opodo and Liligo.
The company says it is present in 42 markets and served more than 14 million customers in the year ended March 31, 2013.
In the nine months ended December 31, 2013, the company generated 7.3 million bookings and revenue margin of EURO 311.9 million. This compares to 6.3 million bookings and EURO 268.1 million in the same period in 2012.
A statement says the company is seeking to pay off debt as well as fund further expansion and that shares are only available to institutional investors.
The Initial Public Offering consists of a primary offering of new shares is expected to raise EURO 50 million and the company also plans a secondary offering where existing shareholders including management and investor Ardian will sell some of their shares.
The statement also says the company’s strategy is to grow its “leading position in the online flight distribution business worldwide” as well as increasing revenue from non-air product and via ‘non-transactional’ means such as advertising and metasearch.
A line within the statement talks about growth of non-air via partnerships with ’non-flight category leaders’ which perhaps points to the affiliate deal with Booking.com which has been in place for accommodation products for some time.
The company acquired Liligo in October last year adding metasearch to its capabilities.
Chief executive Javier Perez Tenessa says:“This is a key moment for the business. In 14 years, we have evolved from a small two-person start-up to the world’s largest online travel company in the flight sector.”
The company, founded in 1999, has an interesting history. eDreams was bought by UK-based private equity firm Permira nearly four years ago in a deal estimated to be around 300 million.
Permira bought it from US-based TA Associates which had acquired it for EURO 153 million in 2006.
Just under three years ago Permira and AXA Partners announced the formation of a European online travel group encompassing eDreams, GOVoyages and Opodo (acquired from Amadeus by Permira and AXA in February 2011).
The Odigeo umbrella name was unveiled just under three years ago when the group announced geographic expansion plans as well as a strategy to extend its services.
More recently it rebranded to eDreams Odigeo because, it said, it wanted to reflect the strength of the eDreams brand.
During its history, the company’s eDreams brand has also had spats with airlines including Ryanair over screen-scraping allegations and more recently with Tigerair Australia, which said the OTA was not an affiliate.
