Yatra acquires 54-year-old corporate travel service Air Travel Bureau

Online travel company Yatra has acquired corporate travel service Air Travel Bureau (ATB) for an undisclosed amount.

The deal will help ATB enhance its offerings for customers by leveraging Yatra’s technology platform and large hotel network.

Commenting on latest development, Dhruv Shringi, co-founder and CEO of Yatra said, "This acquisition significantly strengthens our position in the large and growing corporate travel market in India. We believe that as a combined entity we are now the largest corporate travel services platform in India by gross bookings.”

He added this acquisition will allow him to deliver best-in-class experiences to an even wider set of travellers and enhance his reach to cross-sell an entire product suite to the customer base.

The development was first published by Business standard.

Yatra welcomes the ATB family! Together we have now become No.1 corporate travel platform in the country. https://t.co/oLbytaGywN

— Yatra.com (@YatraOfficial) July 24, 2017

The Boards of Directors of both companies have approved the transaction. The first closing to acquire majority of the outstanding shares is expected to occur by mid-August this year and the second Closing is expected to occur in Q2 of 2018, subject to other customary closing conditions.

Founded in 2006 by Dhruv  Shringi, Manish Amin and Sabina Chopra, NASDAQ-listed Yatra provides information, pricing and booking capability for domestic and international air travel, hotel bookings, holiday packages, and bus and railway reservations.

The Gurgaon-based company was ranked the Most Trusted Online Travel Brand in India and won 'First Prize - Domestic Tour (Rest of India)' at the India Tourism Awards held last year.

On the other side, launched in 1962, ATB is one of India's leading corporate travel service provider. With annual Gross Bookings of Rs 15 billion, ATB specializes in corporate travel management, MICE operations and leisure tourism.

Earlier this month, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL) has exited from its investment in online travel portal Yatra Inc and sold its stake for about $6 million. In July 2016, Yatra merges with Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corp. at a $218 million valuation.

In the latest funding of Online Travel Agency (OTA) space, MakeMyTrip raised $330 million led by its existing investors Naspers and Ctrip in May 2017.

Image credit: Yatra.com