CWT Buying Gateway, With More TMCs In The Pipeline

Carlson Wagonlit Travel today announced an agreement to acquire Gateway Travel Management, an agency with $160 million in annual air volume based in the Pittsburgh area. CWT said the agreement furthers its strategy to grow among small and medium businesses, increase the sale of "value-added" offerings and expand through "targeted acquisitions."

Following more than a yearlong drought of agency purchases, CWT North America senior vice president of national accounts Sam DeFranco told BTN that CWT is eyeing other buys. While the terms of the deal were not disclosed and DeFranco would not share specifics about prospective acquisition targets, he said, "We have a few in the pipeline." The TMC's last corporate travel agency acquisition came in December 2008 with the purchase of Ireland-based Executive Travel, which followed the July 2008 purchase of Greenville, S.C.-based Piedmont Travel.

Through today's announcement, CWT said it gains more than 80 full-time employees, including GTM president and CEO Jim Pekins and vice president and CFO Jim Harris, "each of whom in the near term will focus on assisting clients through the transition to CWT," the mega TMC said. CWT said it also gains GTM's clients, which include some 300 corporates in addition to some group and leisure customers, largely concentrated in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.

"As companies of any size seek to grow and expand across borders, increased investment is needed to provide the level of technology and service clients and their travelers have come to expect," GTM's Pekins said in a statement. "The GTM management team feels CWT is best suited to deliver those capabilities over the long term." Pekins said CWT brings a global footprint and new technologies to GTM's client base.