Caissa Touristic is planning to make an A share listing using shell company Easy Food Co. making it the second large-scale private travel company in China to go public after Utour.
Caissa Touristic was speculated to be using Easy Food as a shell after the latter announced a restructuring on December 13, 2014 that involved issuing shares to HNA Tourism Group and Caissa Touristic in exchange for the two companies’ travel-related assets and to raise capital.
eGuan analyst Zhengyu Zhu thinks Caissa Touristic needs a capital injection by listing to expand its outbound tourism business. “OTAs like Ctrip, LY.co and Tuniu invested heavily to secure their market shares last year and the entire industry is hoping to deal more directly with customers. As competition heats up, the industry trend towards B2C becomes even more obvious. Caissa Touristic will probably expand its B2C services via acquisition, investment and website partnerships,” he said.
Caissa Touristic has opened branches in cities like Xian, Tiayuan, Hangzhou and Suzhou from 2013 to 2014 to strengthen its B2C operations and set up experiential showrooms in Beijing and Tianjin to attract customers’ attention. For outbound tourism operations, it worked closer with tourism authorities in Singapore, Denmark and France last year and was the first Chinese company to launch an immersive tourism product for Singapore.
Caissa Touristic’s parent company HNA Tourism is another major factor in its bid to go public. HNA Tourism acquired Caissa Touristic in 2011 and also owns Easy Food.
HNA Tourism’s top management is thinking of investing assets into Caissa Touristic even if it means an injection of its own assets, according to an informed source. This will make Caissa Touristic’s asset value overtake Utour’s when it’s listed.
Caissa Touristic’s listing is expected to stimulate HNA Tourism’s development and helps it establish a complete chain of service linking airlines and hotels to travel companies.(Translation by David)
