Red Gum Resources has made its third acquisition on the way to refocusing its operations as an online travel and leisure company.
Red Gum, which plans to change its name to Australian Travel Group and relist on the ASX, announced today it would acquire Motive Travel, which specialises in corporate, group and luxury travel, for $2 million.
Motive Travel owner George Michalczyk will join the Australian Travel Group senior management team, while DJ Carmichael will act as financial adviser and Steinepreis Paganin as legal adviser.
“This acquisition is part of a three-phase revenue growth plan and brings the group’s annual sales up to the $85 million threshold,” Australian Travel Group chairman Alan Dodson said.
“Motive Travel is one of only a very small number of Qantas platinum agents, which is expected to enhance the group’s access to offerings to its 50,000-plus customers.”
The deal follows Australian Travel Group announcing plans early last month to acquire Holiday Planet and Asia Escape Holidays.
Holiday Planet has been in operation for the past 13 years, specialising in holidays, cruises, flights and hotels.
Australian Travel Group said at the time the acquisition would enable it to access east coast and Singaporean markets, as well as developing new online booking engines for high-volume travel sectors in Asia, North America, the South Pacific and Europe.
Asia Escape Holidays focuses its operations throughout Asia and the Indian Ocean Rim.
It has been operating for more than 16 years, has a network of 3,000 retail travel agents across Australia, and annual sales exceeding $30 million.
Australian Travel Group is planning a $3 million capital raising to fund its expansion, while it expects further acquisitions will increase its revenue to around $150 million by 2015-16.
Once all the transactions are complete, the company will become the largest independent online travel and leisure group in Western Australia.