Summit Park has acquired smarTours, a provider of direct-to-consumer travel tours. Summit Park partnered with the company’s co-CEO’s, Greg Geronemus and David Rosner, on this transaction and they will continue to lead the company under Summit Park ownership.
smarTours provides travelers with curated, pre-packaged tours and itineraries to over 40 destinations across the globe. The company’s trips focus on connecting travelers with experiences that center around the history, people, attractions and local culture of exotic destinations. Currently offered tour destination include Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, China, Cuba, Dubai, India and Nepal, Japan and many others.
All of smarTours trips include international airfare from the US on major scheduled airlines; deluxe and first class hotels; in-depth excursions and sightseeing; and professional English-speaking local guides. The company has arranged tours for more than 200,000 travelers since its founding in 1996. smarTours is headquartered in New York (www.smartours.com).
“We are very excited to partner with Greg, David and the smarTours team,” said Bob Calton, co-Founding Partner of Summit Park. “We believe Greg and David have done a terrific job of investing in the people and systems necessary to capitalize on an attractive niche of the global travel market. We also think that smarTours is in the early innings of its growth, and our focus will be on significantly increasing the investment in marketing to grow the smarTours brand and continue to build upon its community of highly satisfied travelers.”
Summit Park makes investments in lower middle market companies in a range of industries that have revenues between $20 and $100 million or EBITDAs between $4 million and $12 million. Sectors of interest include business and consumer services, light manufacturing and value-added distribution. Summit Park is headquartered in Charlotte, NC (www.summitparkllc.com).
“Summit Park has an excellent track record of helping businesses accelerate their growth, and we believe that they can be particularly helpful in enhancing our direct-to-consumer marketing efforts through their network of relationships and expertise,” said Mr. Geronemus.
The acquisition of smarTours is Summit Park’s fifth platform investment in its second fund, Summit Park II LP, which closed in May 2015 with $118 million of capital commitments.
New York and Charlotte-based investment bank Fidus Partners (www.fiduspartners.com) was the financial advisor to smarTours.
© 2017 Private Equity Professional | November 3, 2017
