Audley Travel
Sector: Travel
Backed By: 3i
Location: Witney, UK
Sector: Travel
Backed By: 3i
Location: Witney, UK
Audley Travel (“Audley”) is a leading provider of tailor-made experiential travel to over 100 destinations worldwide. Serving clients predominantly in the UK and US, Audley is renowned for its superior customer service and in-depth destination expertise delivered by its country specialists. Founded in 1996, Audley is the clear market leader in tailor-made travel in the UK. The business expanded into the US in 2014 with the opening of an office in Boston and grew rapidly to exceed 25% of bookings by 2019.
3i Group plc is a British multinational private equity and venture capital company based in London, United Kingdom. 3i is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. 3i is a leading international investor focused on mid-market Private Equity and Infrastructure.
3i invested £159m into Audley Travel in 2015 in order to support the team to expand the business’ UK presence, and use its international network to realise management’s ambitions for the company in North America and help Audley expand its operations into new geographies.
ARA Advisory provided support to management including the CFO, Head of FP&A, Exec, and the Finance/Operations teams.
We worked with the business during the height of the first covid lockdown which was a particularly challenging time for the Travel industry, as well as the UK economy as a whole.
Audley was also going through a refinancing transaction in order to inject additional funds into the business during Covid. We provided financial modelling and FP&A services to develop financial management tools and reporting packs, as well as providing support to the business during the implementation of a large technology driven transformation project.
FP&A and financial modelling support included:
We successfully built integrated models to streamline and professionalise a number of finance processes, and successfully provided support to the business in line with their near term strategic objectives.