Danbury, Conn.
1/3/08 2:51 PM

T&T Targeting SMEs with Abacus Acquisition
This material is protected by copyright. Unauthorized redistribution, including email forwarding, is a violation of federal law.

Growing its portfolio of small- and medium-size enterprise clients, Travel and Transport on Wednesday closed its acquisition of Boston's Abacus Travel. Terms of the all-cash deal were not disclosed.

Travel and Transport president and CEO Bill Tech said the deal also would help his company grow its East Coast presence, diversify its client roster and help non-U.S. members of the Radius travel agency consortium (in which T&T is the largest shareholder) serve multinational clients.

Tech said that employee-owned T&T is debt-free and well-positioned to acquire additional travel management companies. "Years ago, there were still a lot of people that were losing money and wanted a fortune for their agency ... The [agency] owners that are left are more realistic as to their value. They are survivors and found a way to make money," he said. "We have employees in 25 states, so there are lots of places we can expand to, where we do have some presence already."

The company's last major corporate travel acquisition was Kurdian Travel in Wichita, Kan., which Travel and Transport purchased 10 years ago.

"We have been looking for the past two or three years," Tech said. "We looked at a lot of people. Unfortunately, most of them were in some financial difficulty. Abacus was a very well-run company that was profitable and growing."

Abacus has four New England offices outside of its Greater Boston base and claims 450 U.S.-based clients that generate $100 million in annual volume. What makes it unique, Tech said, is its success in winning and keeping smaller accounts. "A lot of TMCs lost that segment of the business to online providers like Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity," he said.

T&T's client roster primarily consists of bigger-volume clients, but a diversified portfolio "allows for more fluid financial stability," Tech said. "You don't want all your eggs in one basket. It is good to have large accounts with lots of volume, but when you lose one of them, it hurts you financially a lot more."

Tech said T&T can learn from Abacus' experience with smaller accounts and pursue that segment of the business in such T&T markets as Chicago and Denver.

Meanwhile, Abacus' 100 employees are expected to lend a hand for two "major" Boston-area Travel and Transport accounts using onsite agents.

Tech also noted that such Radius partners as the U.K.'s Portman Travel and France's Selectour Voyages have multinational customers with Boston-area offices that are better served locally than via Travel and Transport's Omaha headquarters. "A lot of our Radius partners have asked us to get an East Coast presence and that was part of our motivation," he explained.

Like Travel and Transport's other branches, Abacus will have dedicated management and assume the Travel and Transport name. Abacus president Marla Huntley and CEO Allan Huntley will serve as consultants during the transition, which Tech said should take two or three months. "Our technology products, where appropriate for the account, will be deployed pretty quickly," he added, "and if their accounts have global needs, we'll put them into the Radius family and help them in their overseas offices."

"Luckily, they are not Worldspan or Amadeus," Tech said of Abacus' global distribution system affiliations. "That was certainly important. They have both Apollo and Sabre, but are predominantly [Galileo's] Apollo, and that is the same where we are--predominantly Apollo."

~ David Jonas

© Copyright 2008 Business Travel Beat, Inc.
Unauthorized email forwarding is a violation of federal copyright law.