frosch travel sold

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Russell 2000, bitcoin usd, cmc crypto 200, jp morgan to acquire frosch luxury travel agency.

JP Morgan Chase has signed a definitive agreement to buy corporate and luxury travel agency Frosch .

The deal represents a new “business line” for the bank, according to Bryan Leibman, the agency’s president and CEO.

“It should give all of us immense pride to be recognized for our industry leading achievements and excellence and to become a foundation for JP Morgan Chase as they enter a new business line,” he said this week in an internal staff memo seen by Skift.

However, like Capital One, JP Morgan has already made significant inroads into the travel sector over recent years, snapping up cxLoyalty Group Holdings’ global loyalty division in December 2020. The deal included cxLoyalty’s full service travel agency, as well as technology platforms, gift card, merchandise and points bank businesses.

Taking over family-owned Frosch and its experienced travel consultants gives it more opportunities to better manage its travel bookings, with a human touch rather than artificial intelligence called for in the premium corporate and luxury sectors. The agency, which is co-headquartered in New York City and Houston, has offices in more than 40 locations worldwide. It was founded in 1972 and has more than 2,000 employees.

Banks and credit card company Capital One helped online travel agency Hopper raise $170 million in new funding last year . Other notable Capital One deals include buying startup Freebird in 2020 , and last year it acquired most of the employees and technology of Lola , a corporate travel booking and expense app.

U.S. Bancorp bought Will Smith-Backed travel platform TravelBank for $200 million in November last year .

For now, Frosch and other brands including Plaza Travel, LUXE Travel, Mann Travels and Valerie Wilson Travel, which it acquired in May last year , will remain intact, and continue “under the JP Morgan Chase umbrella,” according to Leibman. Frosch also received a minority investment from private equity firm EagleTree Capital in February last year.

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JPMorgan agrees to buy luxury, corporate travel agency Frosch – Skift

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JPMorgan Chase & Co. reportedly signed an agreement to purchase FROSCH International Travel Inc., a corporate and luxury travel agency, travel industry news site Skift reported Feb. 17, citing a FROSCH internal staff memo seen by the outlet.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed in the Skift report.

The deal represents a new "business line" for the bank, Bryan Leibman, the travel agency's president and CEO, said in the memo, according to the news outlet.

JPMorgan has previously moved into the travel sector, including acquiring cxLoyalty Group Holdings Inc.'s global loyalty division in December 2020.

The travel agency, which is co-headquartered in New York City and Houston, has offices in more than 40 locations worldwide, Skift noted.

Frosch and its brands including Plaza Travel, LUXE Travel, Mann Travels and Valerie Wilson Travel, Inc. will fall "under the JPMorgan Chase umbrella" and stay intact for now, the report said, citing Leibman.

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Valerie Wilson Travel Agency Acquired by Frosch

Rafat Ali, Skift

May 4th, 2021 at 9:17 PM EDT

Two well-known family travel agencies come under one umbrella, driven by private equity backing to grow. Expect more such deals to happen in the coming months.

Valerie Wilson Travel , one of the iconic family-owned luxury travel agencies, has been acquired by the much larger travel management company  Frosch , which is also family-owned but recently got minority investment from private equity investment from PE firm EagleTree Capital.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Frosch had with $2.4 billion in 2019 sales, while Valerie Wilson Travel had $325 million in sales, according to annual Travel Weekly Power List .

NYC-based Valerie Wilson Travel will continue to operate independently under its current brand, headed by founder and CEO Valerie Ann Wilson, who founded the agency in 1981. With this deal, Frosch continues on its acquisition streak, and even during the pandemic since last year it has acquired CorpTrav and Luxe Travel and took a majority stake in Plaza Travel.

The two agencies are part of different consortia and plan to continue with the arrangement: VWT with Virtuoso, and Frosch with Signature Travel Network.

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Moscow’s famed Hotel Metropol sold at auction

Metropol Hotel's guests have ranged from Vladimir Lenin to Michael Jackson.

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MOSCOW — Michael Jackson slept there. Vladimir Lenin harangued Bolsheviks there. Over the past century, the Hotel Metropol has seen the extremes of Russian life, from austere revolutionary fervor to flashy pop indulgence.

The hotel was sold Thursday for $275 million — slightly more expensive than the starting price of $272 million — after an auction organized by the Moscow city government as part of its privatization program.

The buyer was Azimut, a major Russian hotel chain that rented the Metropol from the Moscow city government, Russian media reported.

Moscow, with a perpetual shortage of hotel rooms and a business culture that adores ostentation, is an attractive market for high-end hoteliers and the Metropol offers plenty of curb-flash.

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Situated cater-cornered from the Bolshoi Theater and an easy stroll from Red Square, the location is prime for any guest who wants to feel in the very center of the city’s heaving action.

It’s one of Moscow’s most distinctive buildings as well, a cheery Art Nouveau confection in a city where buildings mostly seem to glower. Although at six stories it’s one of the city center’s more low-rise structures, it stands out with sinuous curves, friezes of women en deshabille and bands of brightly colored majolica tiles. Several elaborate mosaics top the building, the most noted being Mikhail Vrubel’s “Princess of Dreams,” showing a dying knight sailing through a crashing sea to a vision of his beloved.

Then, there’s the historical cachet. When it opened in 1901, it was a paragon of Russians’ growing prosperity and confidence, but 17 years later took on a far different role. When Bolsheviks decided to move their government from St. Petersburg to Moscow, the hotel was appropriated to become the Second House of the Soviets.

A large plaque on the exterior notes that in 1918-19, Lenin “many times gave reports and speeches at sessions and party congresses” in the hotel and chatted there with members of the “prodotryad,” armed squads of workers who forcefully appropriated food from the bourgeoisie. Another plaque commemorates a 1921 meeting in the hotel that resulted in a friendship agreement with Mongolia.

In the chaos of World War II, the Metropol became home and office for almost all the foreign journalists allowed to work in the USSR. “Gloomy and cavernous, Mother Metropol was like a college fraternity house” during that time, Whitman Bassow wrote in his book “The Moscow Correspondents.”

The auction winner will get all that, but won’t get the hotel’s elaborate array of antique furnishings and paintings. How much of that might be available for separate purchase is unclear. Natalya Bocharova, head of the city property department, said this month that an array of objects from the hotel will be turned over to museums.

The furnishings are a major part of the hotel’s appeal. Jackson, during a 1993 stay, reportedly was so enamored with a lamp featuring a bear figure that he agitated unsuccessfully to buy it.

Despite its storied history and reputation, hotel review websites suggest the Metropol’s rooms often are in need of spiffing up. Tikova said privatization should ensure the hotel gets an upgrade.

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