£15m payday as shares sold in travel firm
A TRAVEL entrepreneur who set up an online holiday firm in Macclesfield 11 years ago is in line for a windfall after it was valued at £240m.
Simon Cooper, pictured, will share in a £15m payday after he and other executives and staff sold a quarter of their shares in ‘On the Beach’.
He will still own an 11 per cent stake, worth around £26m – more than twice as much as it was worth two years ago when private equity group Inflexion bought a 70 per cent stake for £73m.
It suggests the value of Mr Cooper’s stake is now about £15m greater than it was in 2013, further boosting his paper fortune.
Mr Cooper, who remains chief executive, set up On the Beach in a house in Macclesfield in 2004. The firm, now based in Cheadle Heath, Stockport, employs about 300 people.
He began his entrepreneurial career while still at university in 1996 when he founded On the Piste, which focused on budget-friendly ski holidays for students. He sold that business in 2008 to Thomson owner Tui.
On the Beach, which sells affordable beach breaks, says it now has a 17pc share of the UK online short-haul beach holiday market.
On the Beach had more than 300,000 bookings in the year to the end of September 2014, with revenues of £45.8m, up 22pc on the previous year.
Mr Cooper said: “In a little less than 11 years, we .have established On the Beach as one of UK’s leading online retailers of beach holidays.
“The IPO [initial public offering] of On the Beach marks an exciting milestone in the company’s development and will support us in our ambition to become Europe’s leading online retailer of beach holidays.”