Telegraph | Money | 'This is not the end of the journey': "Brent Hoberman tells James Hall why he has sold Lastminute.com and that he remains motivated even after pocketing 26.5m...
Hoberman - who will go from running a medium-sized company to running a division of a much larger group - feel he will be able to retain his entrepreneurial flair under the new owners?
"They wouldn't have wanted me to stay and they wouldn't have bought an entrepreneurial brand if they didn't understand what it is to keep someone like me excited and motivated," he says. "I don't see that the role will be any less exciting, actually - it will just be bigger." He insists that this is not the end of an era. "It's tempting to look at it as the end of a journey but honestly, it really isn't for me. It's the day-to-day job that interests me."
...So why is Travelocity prepared to pay a hefty 57 per cent premium to Lastminute's share price before its bid approach emerged? For some, the deal has shades of the madness of the dotcom boom - Lastminute is still not profitable and made a pre-tax loss last year of £77m to bring combined losses to £250m since the company's launch.
Sam Gilliland, Sabre's chairman, says that the acquisition of Lastminute fits into Travelocity's strategy of expanding its European arm...
Rivals welcomed the deal. "When you've got such a major US player investing almost $1bn in European web travel it is a real coming of age for our industry, and a recognition that the internet has changed the travel business for good," says David Soskin, the chief executive of Cheapflights.com, one of the biggest players in the industry.
The only question is whether a counterbid emerges. Louise Richardson, an analyst at Arden Partners, says the 165p offer is "a little on the miserly side" and doesn't rule out that possibility, given that Lastminute is the "last man standing" in the sector.
Analysts say potential counterbidders could include InterActiveCorp, owner of the Expedia travel website, or Cendant, which bought Ebookers, the UK-based online travel company, last December."
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