Billionaire Petter Stordalen’s Strawberry Group will team up with Altor Fund V and TDR Capital to take over the assets of Thomas Cook Northern Europe, or Vinggruppen, as it is usually called, according to a statement by the group on Wednesday 30 October 2019.
Vinggruppen is the Nordic operations of Thomas Cook Group Plc that went into bankruptcy a little over a month ago. It comprises several brands of which Ving and Spies are the most well-known.
The group sends every year hundreds of thousand of tourists from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland to Asia. Most popular destinations are Thailand, Indonesia, Phillippines, Japan, China, Malaysia, The Maldives, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
For Sweden alone, Ving has about 34 percent of the charter market estimated at 1,8 million travellers.
Magnus Wikener, head of Vinggruppen i Norden, said in the statement that the new ownership was a sustainable solution.
“Their great industry expertise and financial strength give us the long-term stability we need,” he said,
“This agreement also means saving the jobs of just over 2,300 people working in Vinggruppen, including our airline.”
Thomas Cook’s collapse on Sept 23 led to 9,000 job losses in the UK and left 150,000 people stranded overseas, with the holiday plans of thousands more ruined. The company, which described itself as Britain’s largest independent travel agent, was founded four decades ago and had sales of more than US$1.3 billion last year, directly employing 1,900 people.
