Travelport has completed a £450 million tranche of equity financing, resulting in a change to its ownership structure.
The tech firm, headquartered in Langley, Berkshire, has built a marketplace which connects travel retail buyers and sellers. It powers travel bookings for hundreds of thousands of travel suppliers worldwide.
In 2018 it became a private company after a $4.4 billion takeover by US private equity firms Siris Capital Group and Evergreen Coast Capital. It required a $500m injection of funds when COVID halted the travel industry.
Its new ownership structure includes Elliott Investment Management, Davidson Kempner Capital Management, Canyon Partners, Siris Capital and other institutional investors.
It said the new financing significantly deleverages its balance sheet, giving the company ‘a more robust long-term capital structure’.
“The financing transaction represents the strong belief our investors have in our competitive position and potential for long term growth,” said Greg Webb, CEO.
“Our new financing allows us to continue to innovate, enhance and deliver the best-in-class technology our partners have come to expect from us.
“This investment will further fuel our momentum, setting up the company for increased speed, agility and innovation in 2024.”
Last year the company completed several strategic investments including corporate travel management platform Deem.
It said earlier this year that it had migrated over 85% of its travel agency clients to Travelport+, the upgraded version of its software.
It said the new funding would allow it to accelerate development of its platform’s ‘content curation layer’ – a machine learning-powered search engine that normalises and personalises sources of travel content.