Germany / Switzerland: SaaS-enabled vacation rental marketplace HomeToGo is set to acquire Swiss holiday home firm Interhome Group from supermarket chain Migros in an auction proceeding.
It follows a statement from October that the German company had entered into “non-exclusive talks” to purchase the Hotelplan subsidiary.
According to blue News, the purchase price is in “the low three-digit million range in Swiss francs”.
Meanwhile, HomeToGo announced on Thursday [23 January] that an agreement had been reached with Migros on the key commercial terms for the acquisition of Interhome.
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” last 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, making it the second largest provider of vacation rental and management services in Europe. Its European locations include Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
HomeToGo said that it expects the acquisition to “significantly” improve its own profitability
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 2023, 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.
The transaction has not yet been completed, with talks still ongoing and a final purchase agreement to be signed. HomeToGo’s statement also said that there is no guarantee that the transaction will actually be completed.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Hotelplan Group has not yet been sold as part of the latest acquisition, a Migros spokeswoman told news agency AWP.
After its founding in the 1970s, Interhome made a number of high-profile acquisitions, including Casa Club, France Villas, Solemar and Interchalet.
