Boston-based venture capital firm Bain Capital Private Equity is expected to complete the sale of its Apple Leisure Group, which includes Apple Vacations, one of the largest tour operators in the U.S., by Christmas. This is the report from the Latin American news portal, REPORTUR.
Based near Philadelphia, the Apple Leisure Group also includes the tour operator Travel Impressions (which sells and markets a wide range of U.S. product) as well as AMR Resorts, CheapCaribbean.com and several other unites.
When Apple Leisure Group, which some estimates have pegged as worth $1.5 billion, announced late last June that it was looking for a corporate suitor, a Reuters report suggested that there was interest in the company from Chinese investors, including the conglomerate HNA Group—it is headquartered in Haiku, China—which has been on an acquisition spree during the past year of travel-related properties.
It was in 2001 that Alejandro Zozaya, Apple Leisure Group’s CEO, founded the resort sales, marketing, and brand management company, AMResorts. A decade later, Zozaya helped create Apple Leisure Group by making tour operator, Apple Vacations, a sister company of AMResorts.
Bain Capital acquired a majority stake in Apple Leisure Group in late 2012, which then acquired online leisure wholesaler CheapCaribbean and B2B tour operator Travel Impressions from American Express, in 2013.
Since the announcement last June that Bain was pursuing the sale of Apple Leisure Group, there has been very little reported on the matter. Proposals are being screened by Credit Suisse, which is assisting Bain Capital with the process.
Based in Boston, Bain was co-founded in 1984 by Mitt Romney, a one-time governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007) and the Republican Party’s candidate for U.S. president in 2012. He left Bain Capital in 2002.
