Lastminute.com sells out to Travelocity

By Steve Malone

Posted on 12 May 2005 at 17:04

The former darling of Britain's dot com boom, Lastminute.com has been sold. The buyer is US firm Sabre Holdings that already owns the Travelocity online travel business.

The Lastminute.com board says it will accept the bid worth £577m ($1.07bn) for the company. The deal equates to 165p a share and represents a 57 per cent premium on the share price as it stood on Tuesday evening before rumours of a buyout began to circulate. Unsurprisingly, the board says it will recommend that its shareholders accept the bid.

Although, in true dot com style, the company has never made a profit, it has expanded across Europe and the IS and now has a presence in over 13 countries and a number of related websites such as travelselect.com and gotofrance.com.

The company's shares soared yesterday when it revealed that a takeover bid had been made. Lastminute.com was forced to reveal the approach after shares rose 10 per cent in the morning's trading when rumours about the bid began to circulate in the City.

Lastminute.com was the poster child of the UK's dot com boom. Set up by Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox in 1998, the company floated on the stock exchange in March 2000, just weeks before boom turned to bust. At the time of the launch, the shares opened at 380p each and quickly rose to the giddy heights of 560p although they sank equally rapidly after that.

However, today's deal with Sabre leaves the two founders comfortably off. Brent Hoberman, who will stay on to run Lastminute.com and owns 15.8m shares stands to make £26m from the deal. Ms Fox who owns 8.2m shares is worth some £13.5m.