Ad hoc announcement, 7 July 2012, Munich, Germany, 18:52 CET - TOMORROW FOCUS AG is today announcing the acquisition of a 51 percent stake in Webassets B.V. The company operates Zoover, the Netherland’s biggest hotel and holiday ratings portal, and the MeteoVista weather platforms. The agreed price of EUR 21 million will be settled in cash. One of the company’s founders, Erwin Rooymans, is giving up his entire stake. The remaining 49 percent will be held by co-founder Bas Rasker and other current shareholders. Further agreements have been signed that could allow TOMORROW FOCUS AG to take over all the remaining shares by 2017. The exact amounts payable for each tranche of the total purchase price will depend on the company’s future performance. The company will be led as before by CEO Stephan Bosman and co-founder Bas Rasker.
The Zoover web pages are accessed by up to 15 million unique visitors per month. 30 percent of its traffic comes from the Netherlands and the remaining 70 percent from other countries. Its core markets are Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland. Zoover is also active in 20 other countries. MeteoVista is a B2B and B2C provider of meteorological data and services in the Netherlands and Europe. Up to seven million unique users visit its web pages (MeteoVista.de/co.uk/be/fr/pl and weeronline.nl) every month for a wide range of weather information and forecasts.
In millions of euros, the company’s projected revenue for 2012 is in the low double figures, with EBIT in single figures. This year, Germany’s consumer organisation Stiftung Warentest rated Zoover.de the second-best hotel ratings portal in the country after HolidayCheck.
There are also plans for Zoover to collaborate intensively with TOMORROW FOCUS AG’s Dutch brand Tjingo, a leading Dutch online travel agent with its own booking technology. TOMORROW FOCUS AG acquired a majority holding in Tjingo in April 2012. Integrating this technology will make it possible for users to book their package holidays directly on the Zoover platform. International content will be exchanged between Zoover and TOMORROW FOCUS AG’s subsidiary HolidayCheck, both of which also plan to share a single technology platform allowing them to develop customer-friendly IT solutions such as mobile apps. It is anticipated that the weather platform weeronline.nl will join forces and collaborate with other companies in the TOMORROW FOCUS Group.
TOMORROW FOCUS AG’s acquisition of Zoover is intended to step up the international expansion of HolidayCheck AG. Further international acquisitions are in the pipeline.
About Zoover
Zoover is a ratings portal. Visitors to the portal can submit ratings for hotels, holiday resorts and tourist attractions. Based in Zeist in the Netherlands, it has 80 employees and operates in Austria, the Benelux countries, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
About Tjingo
Tjingo.nl, based in Woerden in the Netherlands, brokers package holidays worth around EUR 30 million, making it one of the Netherlands’ most successful online package tour brokers. The Tjingo Group has a workforce of twenty. Over the years, Tjingo has specialised in the online marketing of its Internet portal and in the development of high-quality software. This allows users to find the right package holiday quickly, simply and flexibly.
About HolidayCheck AG
HolidayCheck AG operates the biggest German-language holiday bookings and feedback portal on the Internet. The company is based in Bottighofen, just across the Swiss border from the German town of Constance. With over 200 employees, HolidayCheck AG currently handles package holidays worth over EUR 600 million a year. Today, with over 23 million visits every month (German Information Society for Measuring the Distribution of Advertising Media – IVW, January 2012), HolidayCheck AG operates the most important German-language holiday ratings portal as well as a TÜV-certified travel agency. In response to growing international demand, the holiday platform is now available in ten languages.
About TOMORROW FOCUS AG
TOMORROW FOCUS AG (ISIN DE005495329) is based in Munich, Germany, and is one of the leading exchange-listed Internet groups in Germany.
The Group has a workforce of around six hundred, and its business operations are divided into three segments: Transactions, Advertising and Technologies.
The Transactions segment includes HOLIDAYCHECK, the Group’s hotel rating and travel booking portal; TJINGO, the Dutch online travel agent; ELITEPARTNER, a premium online dating portal; and JAMEDA.de, the physician ratings portal.
The Advertising segment includes TOMORROW FOCUS Media, one of the leading German online marketing providers, which markets a number of portals on behalf of business partners in addition to those operated by the Group itself, such as the news and utility journalism site FOCUS Online and the stock market information portal FINANZEN100. The Technologies segment includes CELLULAR GmbH, one of Germany’s leading full-service agencies for mobile platforms, and TFT GmbH, which provides technology and creative services for web-based IT and e-commerce solutions.