Business travel company Capita has announced the acquisition of Expotel, the company that owns Venues Event Management in Swindon, for £16m.
It is the second major purchase for Capita in two years after it bought Booking Services International (BSI) in 2010.
Paul Pindar, chief executive of Capita, said: "The addition of Expotel will bring both significant additional expertise and greater scale to our UK focused corporate travel business.
“Expotel also brings considerable experience in venue and event management, which, alongside our existing business, creates a proposition of genuine scale and depth in this fast-growing area of the market.”
The combined Capita and Expotel corporate travel businesses will employ nearly 900 staff in 10 locations, including Venues Event Management in Wroughton, Swindon. The companies, which were both in the top 10 of Buying Business Travel’s list of 50 Leading TMCs, have combined gross business travel sales of more than £500m based on 2011 figures.
Expotel made an operating profit of £3.2m on turnover of £16.3m during its last financial year to October 2011. The company’s current clients include National Grid, Virgin Media, Scottish government and BP.
