Thomas Cook shares rise on Nordic division takeover reports
Shares in Thomas Cook surged into the green on Thursday afternoon, amid reports that one of Europe’s biggest takeover specialists was looking to bite off its Nordic operations.
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16:59 23/04/24
According to Sky News, Triton had entered discussions with the ailing London-listed holiday operator about taking over its successful airline and tour operations in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
The division trades under the names Spies, Tjareborg and Ving, and reportedly accounts for about a fifth of Thomas Cook’s 21,000 employees, serving around 1.5 million customers each year.
Monetary figures were not reported, but Sky News quoted an “insider” as saying that the sale of Thomas Cook’s Nordic airline and tour operator divisions would probably be worth “several hundred million pounds”.
Triton purchased European tour operator Sunweb, based in both the Netherlands and Switzerland, five months ago.
Sunweb chairman Lars Lofgren is the former head of Thomas Cook’s Nordic business.
Neither Thomas Cook nor Triton would comment on the reports on Thursday.
Shares in Thomas Cook have been on a roller coaster ride in recent weeks, plunging late last week after the firm reported a £1.5bn interim loss, and analysts at Citi set a price target of nil on its stock.
The company’s auditor, EY, did warn that it would face “material uncertainty” if it could not reach a deal to sell its costly airline business, as part of its going concern opinion.
As of 1436 BST, shares in Thomas Cook Group were up 3.56% at 12.75p.