Everyone is upset over the collapse of Thomas Cook's UK business. However, there are some key facts that have been forgotten. Hint its not necessarily British ;-) .
Thomas Cook's storied history has been somewhat disjointed in recent years. So let me share with you some of my understanding of the history that I recall. The clue was that despite everyone's focus on the brand name - in reality it was more of a German and Chinese company than it was UK.
So let's start with when the company was a UK Nationalized industry. That ended in 1972
1972 - Privatised and bought by a consortium of Britain’s Midland Bank, Trust House Forte and the Automobile Association.
1990 - Thomas Cook becomes the world’s leading foreign exchange retailer when it acquires the retail foreign exchange operations of Deak International. It provided the gold standard in Traveller's Cheques.
1992 - Westdeutsche Landesbank (then controlled by Otto Bisheim , Germany’s third largest bank, and the LTU Group, Germany’s leading charter airline, acquire the Thomas Cook Group from Midland Bank.
1994 - Thomas Cook acquires Interpayment Services Limited, a subsidiary of Barclays bank, to become the largest supplier of travellers cheques outside the United States.
1994 - Thomas Cook sells its travel management business to American Express. This first started with the requirement of Thomas Cook to separate its Travel Agency business and its Financial Sector businesses. This stemmed from the very strange US law that banned banks from owning Travel Agencies.
1995 - Thomas Cook UK dumps its long time GDS partner Galileo for upstart Worldspan
1999 - The European Commission approves the merger of Thomas Cook and Carlson Leisure Group’s UK travel interests. The largest of which was AT Mays. At the time the provider of fulfilment services to Expedia.
2001 - Thomas Cook completes the sale of its Global and Financial Services division to Travelex.This starts the decline of the Forex business now fully subsumed into the Travelex Brand.
2001 - Thomas Cook is acquired by the German travel company Condor & Neckermann, which changes its name to Thomas Cook AG. Neckermann also had a large footprint in Belgium through its ownership of the Wirtz/Sunsnacks business.
2007 - Thomas Cook AG and MyTravel Group plc merge to form Thomas Cook Group plc, bringing a stronger Nordic focus with the incorporation of the Ving, Spies and Tjäreborg businesses.
2011 - Thomas Cook merges its UK retail operations with those of the Co-operative Group and the Midlands Co-operative Society, creating the UK’s largest chain of travel agents.
2013 - Group closes 119 retail shops leaving only about 600 by the time of the final collapse. Down from more than 1000. Also during this year - Thomas Cook teetered on bankruptcy and was finally rescued in a complex series of transactions where the China based Foshun (who seems to have made some investments in failing Travel Companies such as Club Med) became a significant shareholder.
2019 - The group shuts down. It is likely certain parts of the company will survive. Condor Airlines for example at time of writing is still operating.
