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LONDON / Reuters
Chinese conglomerate HNA Group has agreed to buy British bureau-de-change operator International Currency Exchange (ICE), the companies said, the latest takeover in a European investment spree aimed at expanding its business outside Asia.
The acquisitive Global Fortune 500 company, which secured an all-cash $1.5 billion purchase of Swiss airline caterer Gategroup Holdings on last Monday, has not disclosed terms of the transaction. Founded in 1973 and headquartered in London, ICE is one of the world’s largest currency exchange retailers, with a network of over 350 branches and bureaux in 70 airports and multiple other locations in 19 countries.
It was sold by Lenlyn Holdings Limited and turns-over in excess of 1 billion pounds ($1.4 billion) in currency a year.
ICE will become part of HNA Tourism, one of HNA’s fastest growing units, specialising in air travel, hospitality management, tourism, finance, investment and e-commerce.
The acquisition “adds wings to our global coverage of financial services for overseas tourism, and will provide important support to the acceleration of the pace of our internationalisation”, HNA Tourism said in a recent statement.
Under the stewardship of co-founder and chairman Chen Feng, privately-owned HNA has grown into a group with nearly $100 billion in assets.
HNA Group is a Chinese conglomerate headquartered in Haikou, China. Founded in 2000, it is involved in the aviation, real estate, financial services, tourism, logistics, and other industries.
China’s fourth largest airline.
In 1993, Chen Feng established Hainan Airlines. Following a restructuring of the airline in 1997, Feng founded HNA Group as the parent company of Hainan Airlines in January 2000. After the CAAC’s creation of three major airline groups in 2000, HNA Group took control of China Xinhua Airlines, Chang An Airlines, and Shanxi Airlines to remain competitive.
On February 18, 2016, HNA Group was reported to reach an agreement with Ingram Micro Inc, a California-based technology distributor for $6 billion, in the largest Chinese takeover of a US information technology company. HNA Group was then advised by China International Capital Corp in the transaction.