Luxembourg / Germany: SaaS-enabled vacation rental marketplace HomeToGo has confirmed that it has entered into “non-exclusive talks” to potentially acquire Swiss holiday home firm Interhome Group from supermarket chain Migros in an auction proceeding.
The company revealed that “as discussions and due diligence are still ongoing, there is no assurance that a potential transaction will be proposed or consummated”.
Interhome Group is a subsidiary of the Hotelplan Group, which bought the holiday home firm in 1989. Hotelplan’s brands also include Inghams, Explore and Esprit, the latter which was “retired” this year due to an increasing number of “operational challenges”.
As per the Interhome website, the group currently rents out 40,000 properties in 20 countries on behalf of 21,000 owners. Its European locations include Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Since going public via a business combination with special purpose acquisition company [SPAC] Lakestar SPAC I in September 2021, HomeToGo has employed an aggressive mergers and acquisitions [M&A] strategy by purchasing AMIVAC, the vacation rental business unit of Groupe SeLoger, internet company e-domizil GmbH for €40 million, and vacation rental travel tech provider SECRA. In December last year, the company made the largest acquisition of its kind to date by buying a majority stake in short-stay brokers KMW Reisen GmbH and Super Urlaub GmbH.
Prior to that, HomeToGo appointed former OYO Vacation Homes chief financial officer [CFO] Dr Bodo Thielmann as its first-ever chief investment director. Thielmann was tasked with leading the company’s efforts to acquire, integrate and scale profitable businesses, fuelling both organic and inorganic growth.
In its second quarter earnings results announced in August, the German marketplace reported a 27.1 per cent year-over-year rise in booking revenues to €63.8 million [a new Q2 high].
After its founding in the 1970s, Interhome made a number of high-profile acquisitions, including Casa Club, France Villas, Solemar and Interchalet.
