A bidding contest has broken out over Tourism Holdings, the New Zealand company that runs the world’s largest campervan rental fleet, after the board confirmed it had received a second takeover approach that values the business at up to $752 million.
In a statement to the NZX on 25 June, the company said an unnamed global industry player had lodged a non-binding indicative offer of between $3.30 and $3.40 a share. The board has agreed to open its books and let the suitor run due diligence under a confidentiality agreement. As RNZ reported, the news sent the shares up 14.5 percent to $2.92, their highest level in months.
The fresh approach lands on top of an existing bid that has been circling the company since early June. A consortium led by Australian private equity firm BGH Capital and the Trouchet family, which already owns 19.9 percent of Tourism Holdings, has tabled a revised cash offer of $3.10 a share. That values the company at roughly $686 million. Chief executive Grant Webster confirmed the BGH bid was “absolutely still live” and that the consortium was also working towards a confidentiality agreement so it could carry out its own due diligence.
Tourism Holdings, listed under the ticker THL, is far bigger than its modest share price suggests. The company rents and sells motorhomes and campervans through a string of well-known brands including maui, Britz and Mighty in New Zealand and Australia, Road Bear and El Monte in the United States, and Just Go in the United Kingdom. It also builds its own vehicles and runs rental operations in Canada. After merging with Australian rival Apollo Tourism and Leisure in 2022, it became the largest recreational vehicle rental operator on the planet.
That scale is exactly what appears to be drawing in buyers, even though the company has had a difficult year. In early June, Tourism Holdings cut its full-year profit guidance to a range of $40 million to $43 million, down from an earlier forecast of $43 million to $47 million. As it explained at the time, the downgrade reflected softer consumer confidence, disruption to global travel, the effect of the Middle East conflict on vehicle sales, weak domestic rental demand in Australia, and unfavourable currency movements. Net debt was also expected to climb to between $460 million and $470 million, well above the company’s earlier sub-$400 million target.
The performance across its markets has been uneven. Canada has been a standout, with the company expecting a record summer. Forward bookings in the United States have been improving, though the pace of recovery remains uncertain. Australia’s domestic rental business has softened, while the New Zealand outlook hinges on how much air capacity returns and where ticket prices settle.
Despite those pressures, Webster has framed the competing approaches as a vote of confidence in the underlying business. He said the latest bidder was a credible global industry player that had clearly already done significant work understanding the company. The competitive tension between two interested parties was, in his words, “absolutely beneficial for shareholders”. He added that “tourism is an industry that still has a lot of growth to come in the years ahead”, and pointed to the company’s longer-term ambition of lifting net profit after tax towards $100 million from the low $40 million expected this year.
For shareholders who have watched the stock drift, the timing is welcome. Tourism Holdings shares have climbed sharply since the takeover interest surfaced, rising about 34 percent over the past month and roughly 32 percent over the past year, according to figures published by interest.co.nz. Even after that run, both indicative offers sit comfortably above where the shares were trading, which helps explain why the board is willing to engage with both camps at once.
None of this means a deal is done. The board was careful to stress that no decision has been made and there is no certainty that any transaction will proceed. Both approaches are non-binding and indicative, which means either party can walk away, sharpen its pencil, or be trumped by the other once it has seen inside the business. The original BGH proposal at $3.10 a share had carried an expiry date of 12 June before talks continued, a reminder of how quickly these timetables can shift.
The contest also raises a familiar question about ownership of New Zealand’s listed companies. Tourism Holdings is a rare home-grown business that has gone on to lead its industry globally, and a successful takeover by an overseas buyer or a private equity consortium would take it off the NZX altogether. Webster has said the company will keep executing its publicly announced growth strategy while the bidders do their work, so for now it is business as usual on the forecourt even as the boardroom negotiations intensify.
What happens next depends largely on what the two suitors find once they get under the bonnet. If both like what they see, shareholders could end up with a genuine auction on their hands. If neither firms up its numbers, the company carries on as a listed business with a renewed sense of its own worth.
What do you make of the battle for Tourism Holdings? Should a New Zealand tourism success story stay on the local sharemarket, or is a takeover the natural next step? 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 π
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