Online travel business completes third investment in 12 months

Online travel business Travel Seen has acquired a majority stake in Manchester-based luxury tour operator eShores. The deal is Travel Seen’s third investment in the space of 12 months, following its acquisition of a majority stake in luxury travel agency Aquilium Travel and investment in sports and lifestyle travel start-up Vedere in November 2023.

eShores specialises in providing long-haul, multi-centre trips packaged for customers to experience tailor-made tours. The deal brings approximately £12 million of turnover to Travel Seen.

Following the takeover, directors Nadine Brown and Gavin Lapidus will remain at the helm of eShores and retain a meaningful equity stake, in order to ensure continuity of service to the company’s customer base. Gavin Lapidus says that the investment from Travel Seen “represents an exciting new chapter in the continued growth of the business."

Travel Seen was established and is headed by prominent travel industry entrepreneur Jen Atkinson, former CEO of ITC Travel Group. It is backed by Arete Capital Partners, with support from several prominent North West entrepreneurs.

The company states that it focuses on driving value creation once it has onboarded acquisition targets. It is a “social first” luxury travel group, a space in which Jen Atkinson says the space for building travel brands is “huge”.

Discussing the eShores deal, Atkinson said: "We have searched for experienced, high growth travel businesses and eShores represents our third exceptional investment within the last 12 months.”

"This next investment represents a step change in the scale and credibility of our growth and M&A mission. One of the most important factors when investing is the quality of the team and what Gavin and Nadine have built through a very difficult trading time is enviable.”

"We are excited to welcome eShores into the Travel Seen family and look to continue making further investments as we grow, both organically and through further investment."

Mike Fletcher, joint managing partner of Arete Capital, commented: "Since our initial investment in Q3 2021, we have backed Jen’s vision to build a challenger brand in the travel industry.”

"Over the last 12 months, the business has deployed an M&A strategy which plays to Jen’s strengths and mirrors the success story of her previous experience scaling ITC Travel to a £90m TTV (total travel value) group prior to exiting”.

Arete Capital Investment Director Briony Fagan said: "The M&A strategy deployed leverages on existing relationships and trust with management teams; targeting companies with pent-up growth potential in off-market transactions.”

"The nature of the deal sourcing offers fair valuations, allowing owner managed businesses to de-risk whilst continuing to work operationally in the business. Post deal they benefit from centralised services to professionalise the processes of owner managed business."

Sam Davies, deal advisory partner at Cowgills, who advised on the transaction, said that the deal “will further enhance the Travel Seen group, as Jen Atkinson and the team continue to make strategic M&A choices to build their client offering and create a unique proposition in the market."


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