Private equity group 'in the running' for Travelex
The backers of Philip Green’s ill-fated bid for Marks & Spencer are in the running to take over the world’s biggest foreign exchange company, it was reported today.
The private equity arm of investment group Goldman Sachs, which supported the billionaire retailer’s second bid for M&S, has made it onto a shortlist of bidders for Travelex, the Sunday Times said.
Goldman Sachs Capital Partners is understood to have joined Apax Partners on the list after both made offers valuing Travelex at about £1 billion.
The bank handling the sale, Deutsche Bank, hopes to move into the exclusivity stage with one of the two bidders by the end of next month, the newspaper said. No-one from Goldman or Deutsche was today available to comment.
The owners of Travelex, Lloyd Dorfman and private equity group 3i, had previously said they were not committed to a sale, but would entertain a deal at the right price.
The Sunday Times claimed Goldman Sachs’ involvement in the auction was likely to increase speculation that Philip Green would not try again soon to buy M&S and Goldman was “turning its firepower elsewhere”.
Travelex was founded in 1976 and rapidly expanded the number of its bureaux at airports and sea ports in the UK and continental Europe before starting up in the United States in 1989 and expanding to Australia and New Zealand in the early 1990s.
3i backed a management buyout in 1999 and the group bought Thomas Cook’s financial services operation in 2001 and struggling tour company MyTravel’s financial services activities in 2003.
It has heightened its profile in recent years through deals to sponsor the Toyota Panasonic motor racing team, ITV’s coverage of the 2002 World Cup and London’s National Theatre.
The group said in its annual report and accounts for 2003 that the year had been exceptionally challenging, with its retail travel money operation particularly hard hit by the combination of the Iraq war, terrorism and the Sars virus.
Despite that, annual group revenues increased by 0.5% to £465.5 million and pre-tax profits rose by 87% to £53.4 million.
