9th Nov 2005 07:00
Capita Group PLC09 November 2005 9 November 2005 CAPITA ACQUIRES LONSDALE TRAVEL The Capita Group Plc ("Capita") announces that it has acquired the entire sharecapital of Lonsdale Travel Limited ("Lonsdale"), one of the UK's leadingindependent travel management companies. Capita will pay £10.25 million oncompletion, to be satisfied by the issue of 64,185 new ordinary shares in Capitaand £10 million in cash. A further £250,000, payable in cash, will be paid overthe next four years, subject to the business achieving certain performancetargets. Lonsdale is ranked number 11 in the Business Travel Company market and providesa wide range of travel administration services to organisations across thepublic and private sectors. Lonsdale is Capita's preferred supplier of travelservices and Capita currently represents approximately 16% of Lonsdale'sbusiness. Lonsdale's audited accounts for the year ended 30 November 2004,recorded operating profit of £2.0 million on net fee income of £7.3 million. Asat 30 November 2004 Lonsdale had audited net assets of £1.7 million. Some 220 employees, based primarily in Derby, will transfer to Capita and thefounder and Chairman of Lonsdale, Stuart Webb, is retiring from the business aspart of the transaction. Rod Aldridge, Executive Chairman of The Capita Group Plc, said, "Thisacquisition extends and complements our existing portfolio of services which arefocussed on transforming the quality and efficiency of our clients' back officeand customer facing services. With many public and private sector organisationsincreasingly outsourcing non-core administration operations, we are constantlyexpanding our service offering to enable us to provide broader support to ourclients. Just as we targeted and built up over the past 20 months a market leadingposition in supplying outsourced occupational health services, we have nowidentified travel administration as an area of major spend where we can addvalue to our clients by offering effective outsourced services. Organisationsspent £14.7bn* on business travel in the UK in 2004 and we estimate that some£3bn is spent across the public sector alone. The administration costs of thisactivity are very significant and ripe for re-engineering. "The acquisition will open significant cross-selling opportunities for bothcompanies and bring clear benefits to existing customers. We welcome all theemployees of Lonsdale Travel to Capita and look forward to working with them andcontinuing to grow the business." - Ends - * Business Travel Market, Keynote January 2005 For further information please contact: The Capita Group Plc +44 (0)20 7799 1525Rod Aldridge, Executive ChairmanPaul Pindar, Chief ExecutiveShona Nichols, Corporate Communications DirectorPress Office +44 (0)870 2400 488 Notes to Editors: The Capita Group Plc is the UK's leading provider of integrated professionalsupport service solutions. The Group's service capabilities encompass customerservices, financial services, human resource services, software services,systems and strategic support and property services delivered to both publicsector and private organisations. With over 23,000 employees at more than 230offices across the UK and Ireland, Capita is quoted on the London Stock Exchange(CPI.L), and is a constituent of the FTSE100 with revenues for 2004 of £1,285million. Capita has secured a number of awards including Best BPO Services Provider 2004. Further information on The Capita Group Plc can be found at: www.capita.co.uk This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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