Sheremetyevo decided to buy the largest tour operator "Biblio-Globus"

Sheremetyevo International Airport buys a controlling stake in Biblio-Globus travel operator. This was told to RBC by a source close to Sheremetyevo and a partner of the tour operator. This was confirmed by PR DIRECTOR of Sheremetyevo Anna Zakharenkova.

According to Zakharenkova, Sheremetyevo signed an agreement of intent to buy 75% of Turoperator BG LLC. The completion of the transaction is scheduled for the end of September 2021. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Touroperator BG is the main legal entity of Biblio-Globus. It is it that concludes contracts with partner travel agencies (more than 25 thousand, according to the company itself), which sell vacation packages directly to customers.

"Tour operator BG" is 100% owned by Yulia Tugolukova, follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. She, together with her husband Alexander Tugolukov, founded the Biblio-Globus group in 1994, which is the largest domestic tourism operator. Tugolukova will continue to HEAD the board of directors of the company, continues the interlocutor of RBC. The Tugolukov family, according to a federal official, will not go out of business completely, it will have a minority stake. The proceeds from the deal can be used to develop other family projects, such as hotels.

What is Biblio-Globus known for?

"Biblio-Globus" is the only tour operator included in the rating of "200 largest private companies in Russia" according to FORBES. At the end of 2019 (data for 2020 has not yet been published), the company took 117th place in the rating, and its revenue was estimated at 99.1 billion rubles. Of the other travel companies in the ranking, only Vipservice, a consolidator for the sale of air and railway tickets, is listed (this company was in 103rd place, Forbes estimated its revenue at 110.4 billion rubles).

The Biblio-Globus website states that in 2019, 3.6 million people used the company's services. In the pandemic 2020, the number of customers fell by half, to 1.8 million people. In 2019, the British travel holding Thomas Cook estimated that Biblio-Globus served about 3 million clients a year, more than half of them resting in RUSSIA.