EPS Enters Travel Arena

<B> EPS Enters Travel Arena</B>

By Sarah Welt

<i>Costa Mesa, Calif.</i> - Another new player has entered the travel industry, as Deloitte & Touche spinoff EPS Solutions last month acquired The T&E Group travel management consultancy of Newport Beach, Calif.

EPS chief administrative officer Frank Cottle hinted at even more travel-related acquisitions, saying "there is a strong probability we will have made substantial progress in growing our capabilities in the travel area during the next 180 days." Former T&E Group senior partner and vice president of procurement Gerard Smith said the company is "aggressively looking for acquisitions and consultants."

EPS now will add travel to the list of cost-saving opportunities it offers its client base, 55 percent of whom are Fortune 1000 companies. Already on that roster of areas for "enhanced shareholder value" are healthcare, real estate, benefit funding and telecommunications. "We are very concerned with all areas clients spend significant dollars on, and T&E is one of those major categories," Cottle said. EPS plans to focus initially on travel spending audits and policy development, and in the future will expand that to include contracting.

EPS is a brand new company, spun off from Deloitte & Touche LLP on Dec. 14, 1998. Cottle said its initial revenues of $250 million in ten weeks have increased 25 percent, to more than $300 million.

Smith, who was Northrop Grumman's travel manager before launching the T&E Group, said the acquisition gives his company a greater reach among major corporations. More than 50 percent of his clients have contracts with one or more of the 40 consulting companies operating under the EPS umbrella, he noted, giving the company the ability to "cross sell our services to each others' clients very easily."

The T&E Group will retain its name for now, though "at a future point in time, as other brands might be brought into the organization, we will probably rename it under the EPS banner to reduce confusion--possibly EPS Travel Solutions.