John van Vlissingen
The Netherland-America foundation this month honored BCD Holdings chairman John Fentener van Vlissingen with its Ambassador K. Terry Dornbush award for philanthropic, educational and cultural contributions to the relationship between the Netherlands and the United States. Before accepting the recognition, the wealthy Dutchman answered questions from reporters. What follows is an excerpt of the briefing, during which van Vlissingen noted BCD's acquisition of 80 percent of an unnamed Singaporean travel management company and an "increase within 12 months [of] our position in Australia," where BCD partners with International Express. A recent $50 million infusion into BCD Travel supported these and other investments, he said.
Regarding your 21 percent investment in Hogg Robinson Group. Is that more than an investment?
If anything happens with that company, I want to sit at the table. I won't let them go. The English regulations are if you have 25 percent in a company, it cannot be taken off the stock exchange; meaning, if you're at 21, it's not so difficult to buy to 25; meaning that if anyone would come along with whatever bid, they have to invite me and we sit at the table to discuss the future of that company. There are two major shareholders, so the chance that it would go to another one is not very big, or if they do it, I'll sit at the table. I see David [Radcliffe, HRG chief executive] every six months. We still have a substantial number of clients jointly. That number is going down, but it's still an important number. Mostly we have America, and they have Europe or elsewhere. If it would be taken over, then things could really happen. I feel very comfortable with this position.
What was the purpose for the $50 million infusion into BCD Travel?
That came from cash flow and the dividends coming in from the different [BCD Holdings] companies. We've taken over a few of the debts; we still had some outside shareholders. Also [it was] because clients are asking, "Where do you stand?" and "What's happening?" We're investing for the "next next-generation." My family has been in business for 200 years. We have seen a lot of crises, and we know they will go away again.
BCD has three primary competitors and each has a different ownership structure. How do those differences in ownership structure drive differences in strategy?
I love my situation. We're a family company. We know where we want to go. It's kind of one goal. We're not going to sell. We'll buy further, and this is an ideal time to strengthen your position. I will not comment on my competition but one is on the stock exchange and is becoming a bank--it became a different company. And Carlson [Wagonlit] has two shareholders; one is venture capital and the other one is the family. We are a true family company and, as a family, we like to build.
An American Airlines executive suggested that some day he would like travel agencies to pay for ticket distribution. Airlines already made moves that meant clients are more directly paying for some of it. Can you describe the revenue mix and how it has changed?
In the old days, the airlines would pay but now the client pays--and I like that much better. And you give your client every extra you can get. There are a lot of variations so it doesn't always happen, but the client then knows about it. Seventy-five or 80 percent came from airlines, and that has flipped. It's interesting, though. Because of the economy and because airlines have to fight, some are coming back with commissions. It's not dramatic, but it's growing. So somewhere we hit the bottom there, and we have now some airlines starting to give commissions again on business class and mainly in Europe. It's not something we pushed; well, we helped them a little bit. Hotels haven't changed very much; with hotels, the question is more, "Will they pay?" But that has been the case for 20 years and somewhere we didn't get it solved.
Is the attention from companies on [environmental] sustainability less than it was a year ago?
No, it's still happening. You see a split. I don't know the list, but I imagine banks are not asking for this, but food companies and regular kinds of business are still asking about it and they know it will come back. Obama has made comments, and there is growing interest among American companies, which was not the case in the old days. Major corporations are too serious to go into hype; they want an answer for their shareholders and their own personnel, and that's kind of outside of the economy. I agree that the discussion is less, but corporations are generally still interested.