Sabre Took Losses on Four out of Six Asset Sales in 2012 and 2013
Skift Take
Sabre has been an active acquirer over the years, but in 2013 it sold three businesses -- Travelocity Business, Holiday Autos and Zuji -- all at a loss. Sabre wanted to execute a successful IPO, and it had plenty of things to tidy up.
Now that the veil has been lifted as privately held Sabre filed its IPO registration statement, details have emerged about the company's asset-disposition frenzy in 2012 and 2013, mostly in an attempt to trim losses and pretty up the balance sheet in preparation for going public.
The coup de gras was the recently implemented agreement that has Sabre outsourcing the back-end operations of its Travelocity unit in North America to Expedia.
Sabre is trying to trim its losses at Travelocity. For the first nine months of 2013, Sabre took a $96 million impairment charge for Travelocity North America, and another $40 million for Travelocity Europe
