Shares in Tourism Holdings surged almost 30 percent on Friday after the campervan and motorhome rental giant confirmed it had received a sweetened takeover approach from an Australian led consortium, even as the company warned that its annual profit would land below earlier forecasts.
Tourism Holdings, which is dual listed on the New Zealand and Australian exchanges and bills itself as the largest recreational vehicle rental operator in the world, told the market on Thursday evening that a group made up of private equity firm BGH Capital and the Trouchet family had lifted its all cash offer to 3.10 dollars a share. The proposal values the business at more than 500 million dollars and is a sharp step up from the 2.30 dollars a share the same parties put forward in 2025, an approach the board knocked back at the time as opportunistic.
The company runs well known rental brands including maui, Britz and Mighty, hiring out vehicles to holidaymakers across New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada, and it also builds and sells motorhomes. The Trouchet family founded the Australian rental group Apollo, which merged with Tourism Holdings in 2022, and together with BGH the consortium already controls about 19.9 percent of the company. RNZ reported that shareholders holding a further 16 percent of the register have signalled they are supportive of the board engaging with the consortium and opening the books for due diligence.
Investors did not wait around. THL shares, which had been trading well below the new offer price, climbed close to 30 percent to 2.83 dollars on the NZX as the market weighed up the prospect of a clean cash exit at a premium to the recent price. The jump came despite the gloomier profit picture the company delivered on the same day.
The approach remains non binding and highly conditional. The consortium has set a deadline of 5pm on 12 June for Tourism Holdings to respond, and any deal would still hinge on the bidders completing due diligence, finalising their debt funding and winning a recommendation from the THL board alongside an independent valuation. In its statement to the exchange the company said it had not yet decided whether to grant access to its records, and that the board would act in what it considered the best interests of the company and all of its shareholders.
The takeover news arrived hand in hand with a profit warning. As the New Zealand Herald reported, Tourism Holdings now expects underlying net profit from continuing operations of 40 to 43 million dollars for the year to June, down from the 43 to 47 million range it had reaffirmed as recently as March.
More striking was the shift in its debt outlook. Net debt is now tipped to reach 460 to 470 million dollars by the end of June, well above the sub 400 million figure the company had earlier guided to. That is a swing of around 70 million dollars in a matter of months and helps explain why a cash offer, even an unsolicited one, has caught the attention of so many shareholders.
Management pointed to a tangle of factors behind the downgrade. Vehicle sales have softened since early March, domestic rental demand in Australia has weakened, and the lingering effect of conflict in the Middle East has continued to weigh on vehicle sales. On top of that the company flagged around 10 million dollars of adverse currency movements and roughly 20 million dollars of working capital pressure, including slower than planned progress in clearing inventory left over from a recently closed Australian manufacturing operation.
Not everything was heading the wrong way. The company said its Canadian business was performing strongly and was on track for what could be a record northern hemisphere summer, while it still held more than 300 million dollars of available liquidity and remained comfortably within its banking covenants.
The twin announcements left the market to make a familiar judgement. On one hand the underlying business is clearly feeling the pinch of a softer global travel market, a glut of vehicles to shift and a currency working against it. On the other, a deep pocketed buyer that already knows the company well appears willing to pay a healthy premium to take it private, betting that the long run value of the world’s biggest RV rental network is worth more than the share price had been suggesting.
For now the ball sits with the Tourism Holdings board, which has until the middle of June to decide whether to let the consortium look under the bonnet. A decision to grant due diligence would not guarantee a deal, but it would mark the clearest step yet towards a change of ownership for one of New Zealand’s best known tourism names. A refusal would leave shareholders to weigh up the takeover that got away against a company still working through a difficult patch.
The episode is a reminder of how exposed New Zealand’s tourism operators remain to forces well beyond their control, from exchange rates and far off conflicts to the spending habits of travellers on the other side of the world. It also shows how quickly private capital will move when a listed company’s share price drifts below what a trade buyer thinks the assets are really worth.
What do you make of the bid for Tourism Holdings? Should the board open the books, or hold out for a better price? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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