German travel firm Intosol floats in London to fund South African projects

Luxury travel firm Intosol has floated on the London Stock Exchange on Monday with plans for a post-listing fundraising to drum up funds to expand its South African boutique hotel brand.

The Hannover-headquartered company expects to offer up to 5m shares at a price between 100p to 200p in post-listing open offer to raise up to £5m for marketing and development of new projects.

Intosol also aims to attract business from more UK-based customers as the majority of its 15,000 strong customer base for its Soul Private Collection hotel chain stems from Germany and Switzerland.

Some 11.5m shares were in issue, prior to the new open offer, providing a market capitalisation of around £11.4m.

Executive chairman Rainer Spekowius, the public relations executive who founded the business in 2003, said: “The listing facilitates the next stage in our growth strategy primarily through the development of the Soul Private Collection and expansion into English-speaking markets. We have a number of unique and exciting opportunities in the pipeline on the private travel design side and are focused on completing the acquisition of Oceans Wilderness.”

Oceans Wilderness is a nine-bedroom boutique hotel in the coastal 'Garden Route' and the company is also beginning the development of a commercial safari lodge in the Leadwood big game estate.

“Intosol understands the changing face of luxury travel and the increasing preference for one-off experiences. We have a fantastic portfolio of destinations and unique experiences, which we successfully tailor to our clients’ needs, underlined by the extremely high level of repeat custom we receive,” said Spekowius.

Intosol has achieved 10% year-on-year organic revenue growth in the last ten years, with its full-year revenue from 2017/18 coming in at £6.5m.