Cruise.co Ltd is one of the UK’s leading online travel agents for the cruise market. The business operates two core websites; www.cruise.co.uk and www.cruises.co.uk. It also has the leading cruise review forum with approximately 85,000 members commanding 11 million web visits per annum. The business has excellent relationships with all the major mainstream, river and luxury cruise ship operators.

Risk Capital Partners supported a management buy-out of Cruise.co in August 2013. We backed the incumbent management team, led by Andrew Gardener (Chairman) and Seamus Conlon (Managing Director) and strengthened the board with the recruitment of an FD, and digital talent.

Why we invested:

• UK cruise market is robust, supported by favourable demographics
• Customers increasingly switching from booking ‘off’ to online
• Strategic market position in distribution channel
• Unrivalled CRM data brings defensible advantage
• Highly personalised service with strong repeat revenues

Outcome

In August 2016 Cruise was sold in a tertiary management buyout to Bridgepoint Development Capital generating a significant money multiple in our 3 years of ownership.