G Adventures Hasn’t Yet Used Certares Investment Money; Closing In On Acquisitions Now

G Adventures, the small group tour operator hasn’t yet used any of the large amount of money it received in early 2021 from travel-focused private equity firm Certares, CEO Bruce Poon Tip admitted in an interview with Phocuswire.

When Skift first broke the news about this investment in early Feb 2021, the company said at that time that there was no change in ownership or equity involved in the transaction, and that this investment was for growth capital, not working capital, and Certares did not take a minority stake in the G Adventures. Which meant that this money was allocated for M&A by G Adventures, and it looks like after all this time, finally the company may be ready with its first set of acquisitions.

From the interview: “We haven’t done much, I’ll admit. There’s a bit of pressure now, to be honest. It’s just over a year later. We were given a substantial amount of capital for acquisitions…There are going to be some announcements within the next month that we’re finalizing….We signed this deal within that first year of COVID thinking there were going to be great opportunities for acquisition on the other side of COVID. But like every other travel company, we were in survival mode taking care of our own business… We’ve looked at startups, we’ve looked at established brands within the group travel space. We looked at investments in minority and majority stakes. Our wheelhouse is definitely group travel…I’m looking to other niche travel markets that could use more of our infrastructure and distribution and also our lens for community tourism and social enterprise.”