Crossland nets new fortune from car hire business

Last updated at 3:00 AM on 18th June 2008

Air tours founder David Crossland has sold a Manchester-based car hire business for £27m to a management team which has been backed by ISIS Equity Partners and Yorkshire Bank.

Travel jigsaw Ltd, which was only set up in 2004, trades as CarHire3000.com and last year made a pre-tax profit of £2.2m on turnover of £37.3m. It has quickly become the third-largest car broking service in the world, with around 4,000 customers in 20 different countries.

ISIS has taken a significant minority stake in the business, which will be run by a five-strong management team led by managing director Greg Wills and including former Stanley Leisure director Stephen Ormerod as finance director, commercial director Nichola Moran, sales & marketing director Lawrence Marlor and IT director Andrew Crossland.

Yorkshire Bank put in £8m worth of debt funding into the business which regional director Paul Shephard said had quickly developed a “strong market position”.

“It is fast growing, but there’s a huge amount of growth left in it which fits with what ISIS wants to do with the business,” he told Crain’s.

Source:
http://www.crainsmanchesterbusiness.co.uk/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080617/
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