lastminute.com splashes out €46.7m for lastminute.de

lastminute.com has paid €46.7m in cash and shares to two entrepreneurs for a clutch of German companies, the lastminute.de operation and the lastminute.tv domain name.

The move will make the company the largest online travel company in Germany. Last year the German-owned operation turned over €49.3m from 115,000 customers and claimed a gross margin of 16 per cent and €2.6m of gross profit.

The UK company will pay €24m in cash and swap 8.23 million new shares to complete the deal. Besides the .de name it will get three German companies: Anixe Systems, Avinex and Cinetic Internet Touristik.

The German operation offers package holidays to popular destinations. lastminute.tv will be licensed to a small, independent tv operation.

Brent Hoberman, CEO of lastminute.com, was widely reported earlier this year as having intentions to set up a lifestyle TV operation. A lastminute.com spokesman said the .tv operation was separate and the company had never expressed any intentions of moving into lifestyle TV.

Hoberman said in a statement that the transaction would remove the confusion between the .com and .de brands.