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Travelport
Travelport Worldwide Ltd provides distribution, technology, payment solutions for the travel and tourism industry. It is the smallest, by revenue, of the top three global distribution systems (GDS) after Amadeus IT Group and Sabre Corporation. The company also provides IT services to airlines, such as shopping, ticketing, and departure control. History The company was formed by Cendant in 2001 following its acquisitions of Galileo GDS for $2.9 billion and CheapTickets for $425 million. In 2004, the company acquired Orbitz for $1.25 billion and Flairview Travel for $88 million. In 2005, the company acquired eBookers for $350 million and Gullivers Travel Associates for $1.1 billion. In August 2006, Cendant sold Orbitz and Galileo to The Blackstone Group for $4.3 billion, forming Travelport. In August 2007, Travelport acquired Worldspan for $1.4 billion. In July 2007, the company completed the partial corporate spin-off of Orbitz via an initial public offering. In May 2010, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Worldspan
Worldspan is a provider of travel technology and content and a part of the Travelport GDS business. It offers worldwide electronic distribution of travel information, Internet products and connectivity, and e-commerce capabilities for travel agencies, travel service providers and corporations. Its primary system is commonly known as a Global Distribution System (GDS), which is used by travel agents and travel related websites to book airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, tour packages and associated products. Worldspan also hosts IT services and product solutions for major airlines. Recent events In December, 2006, Travelport, owner of the Galileo GDS, Gullivers Travel Associates (GTA) and a controlling share in Orbitz, agreed to acquire Worldspan. However, at the time, management of Travelport did not commit to the eventual merging of the two GDS systems, saying that they were considering all options, including running both systems in parallel. On August 21, 2007, the acquis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Blackstone Group
Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate business has actively acquired commercial real estate. Blackstone is also active in credit, infrastructure, hedge fund solutions, insurance solutions, secondaries and growth equity. As of Q3 2022, the company's total assets under management were approximately United States dollar, US$951 billion, making it the largest alternative investment firm globally. Blackstone was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions firm by Peter George Peterson, Peter G. Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman, who had previously worked together at Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc., Lehman Brothers. History Founding and early history Blackstone was founded in 1985 by Peter G. Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman with $400,000 in Seed money, seed capital. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galileo GDS
Galileo is a computer reservations system (CRS) owned by Travelport. As of 2000, it had a 26.4% share of worldwide CRS airline bookings. In addition to airline reservations, the Galileo CRS is also used to book train travel, cruises, car rental, and hotel rooms. The Galileo system was moved from Denver, Colorado, to the Worldspan datacenter in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 28, 2008, following the 2007 merger of Travelport and Worldspan (although they now share the same datacenter, they continue to be run as separate systems). Galileo is subject to the Capps II and its successor Secure Flight program for the selection of passengers with a risk profile. Galileo is a member of the International Air Transport Association, of the OpenTravel Alliance and of SITA. History Galileo traces its roots back to 1971 when United Airlines created its first computerized central reservation system under the name Apollo. During the 1980s and early 1990s, a significant proportion of airline ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orbitz
Orbitz.com is a travel fare aggregator website and travel metasearch engine. The website is owned by Orbitz Worldwide, Inc., a subsidiary of Expedia Group. It is headquartered in the Citigroup Center, Chicago, Illinois. Background Originally established through a partnership of major airlines, and subsequently owned by various entities, Orbitz.com – the flagship brand of Orbitz Worldwide – has been in operation since 2001. Other Orbitz Worldwide online travel companies include CheapTickets in the Americas; ebookers in Europe; and HotelClub and RatestoGo, based in Sydney. Orbitz Worldwide also owns and operates Orbitz for Business, a corporate travel company. Orbitz was the airline industry's response to the rise of online travel agencies such as Expedia and Travelocity, as well as a solution to lower airline distribution costs. Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, and United Airlines, subsequently joined by American Airlines, invested a combined $ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cendant
Cendant Corporation was an American provider of business and consumer services, primarily within the real estate and travel industries. In 2005 and 2006, it broke up and spun off or sold its constituent businesses. Although it was based in New York City, the majority of its headquarters employees were in Parsippany-Troy Hills Township, New Jersey, Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey. Its last CEO was Henry Silverman. History Founding Hospitality Franchise Systems Inc. (HFS) was created as an affiliate of the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm, as a vehicle to acquire hotel franchises. It was led by Henry Silverman, a Blackstone partner and former CEO of Days Inn. It began in 1990 by buying Howard Johnson's and the U.S. rights to the Ramada brand from Prime Motor Inns for $170 million. In 1992, HFS bought the Days Inn franchise out of bankruptcy for $290 million. This purchase made HFS the largest hotel franchisor in the world, with its brands licensed to 2,300 hotels. Blacks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CheapTickets
CheapTickets is an online Travel agency, travel services company focusing on the leisure market, offering airline tickets, hotel and vacation rentals, rental cars, customized vacation packages, and cruise ship, cruises. CheapTickets was a wholly owned subsidiary of Orbitz, Orbitz Worldwide, Inc., and with Expedia Group, Expedia Inc.'s purchase of Orbitz, it is now a subsidiary of Expedia Group. History CheapTickets was founded in 1986 in Honolulu, Hawaii by Michael and Sandra Hartley when inter-island carrier Mid Pacific Air gave 3,000 tickets to Hartley's employer at the time, advertising firm Regency Media, as payment for its services at the time Regency closed its Honolulu branch. The tickets were advertised via newspaper classified ads and sold out in two weeks. The company grew into an airline ticket consolidator, acquiring seats from airlines at rates low enough to allow the company to resell them at fares lower than the airline's normal published airfares. It opened its firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corporate Spin-off
A corporate spin-off, also known as a spin-out, or starburst or hive-off, is a type of corporate action where a company "splits off" a section as a separate business or creates a second incarnation, even if the first is still active. Characteristics Spin-offs are divisions of companies or organizations that then become independent businesses with assets, employees, intellectual property, technology, or existing products that are taken from the parent company. Shareholders of the parent company receive equivalent shares in the new company in order to compensate for the loss of equity in the original stocks. However, shareholders may then buy and sell stocks from either company independently; this potentially makes investment in the companies more attractive, as potential share purchasers can invest narrowly in the portion of the business they think will have the most growth. In contrast, divestment can also sever one business from another, but the assets are sold off rather t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was established in London in 1851 by the German-born Paul Reuter. It was acquired by the Thomson Corporation of Canada in 2008 and now makes up the media division of Thomson Reuters. History 19th century Paul Reuter worked at a book-publishing firm in Berlin and was involved in distributing radical pamphlets at the beginning of the Revolutions in 1848. These publications brought much attention to Reuter, who in 1850 developed a prototype news service in Aachen using homing pigeons and electric telegraphy from 1851 on, in order to transmit messages between Brussels and Aachen, in what today is Aachen's Reuters House. Reuter moved to London in 1851 and established a news wire agency at the London Royal Exchange. Headquartered in London, Reuter' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kuoni Travel
Kuoni Travel is a tourism company, operating various services including charter and scheduled passenger airlines, package holidays, cruise lines, and hotels in destinations around the world across nine different geographic regions. The company specialises in luxury and tailor-made travel for both business and consumer markets, as well as related services such as visa processing. In 2013, the Kuoni Group was named “World’s Leading Luxury Tour Operator” at the annual World Travel Awards. History Kuoni was founded in 1906 by the entrepreneur Alfred Kuoni in Zurich, Switzerland, where the firm has continued to be based. Over time, Kuoni grew to be the biggest travel company in Switzerland. During 1965, Kuoni established a base in the United Kingdom by purchasing Challis and Benson in London’s Bond Street; over time, Kuoni became the leading longhaul tour operator in the British market. In 1966, Peter Diethelm established the Kuoni UK tour operation. During 1970, Kuoni in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Privately Held Company
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is offered, owned, traded, exchanged privately, or Over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter. In the case of a closed corporation, there are a relatively small number of shareholders or company members. Related terms are closely-held corporation, unquoted company, and unlisted company. Though less visible than their public company, publicly traded counterparts, private companies have major importance in the world's economy. In 2008, the 441 list of largest private non-governmental companies by revenue, largest private companies in the United States accounted for ($1.8 trillion) in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to ''Forbes''. In 2005, using a substantially smaller pool size (22.7%) for comparison, the 339 companies on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Initial Public Offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment banks, who also arrange for the shares to be listed on one or more stock exchanges. Through this process, colloquially known as ''floating'', or ''going public'', a privately held company is transformed into a public company. Initial public offerings can be used to raise new equity capital for companies, to monetize the investments of private shareholders such as company founders or private equity investors, and to enable easy trading of existing holdings or future capital raising by becoming publicly traded. After the IPO, shares are traded freely in the open market at what is known as the free float. Stock exchanges stipulate a minimum free float both in absolute terms (the total value as determined by the share price multiplied by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at US$30.1 trillion as of February 2018. The average daily trading value was approximately 169 billion in 2013. The NYSE trading floor is at the New York Stock Exchange Building on 11 Wall Street and 18 Broad Street and is a National Historic Landmark. An additional trading room, at 30 Broad Street, was closed in February 2007. The NYSE is owned by Intercontinental Exchange, an American holding company that it also lists (). Previously, it was part of NYSE Euronext (NYX), which was formed by the NYSE's 2007 merger with Euronext. History The earliest recorded organization of securities trading in New York among brokers directly dealing with each other can be traced to the Buttonwood Agreement. Previously, securiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
