SOUTHLAKE, Texas, Aug. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Sabre
Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR), a leading technology provider to the
travel industry, announced today that it has informed the U.S.
Department of Justice (DOJ), which has been performing a lengthy
and exhaustive review of the transaction, of its intent to close
the deal on August 21, 2019.
Under the terms of its timing agreement with Sabre, if the DOJ
decides to seek to block the transaction prior to the expected
closing date, it must file its complaint in federal court before
August 21. Sabre is confident in the
legal and competitive merits of the acquisition and that the
transaction will ultimately be completed.
"We are incredibly excited to close our acquisition of Farelogix
so that airlines, travel agents, corporations, and travelers can
benefit from the end-to-end next-generation retailing solutions we
will be able to deliver. This deal will allow us to provide our
airline and agency customers with more and better choices, all
while we continue to offer and invest in Farelogix's current suite
of products and services," said Sean
Menke, President and CEO of Sabre. "Over the past nine
months, we believe we have done all we can to address the DOJ's
concerns. While we hope the DOJ will ultimately recognize that this
transaction is pro-competitive, we are prepared to vigorously
defend the deal in court if necessary."
Since announcing the proposed transaction last November, Sabre
has been working closely with the DOJ to demonstrate to them the
unquestionable value of the transaction to its airline and agency
customers, consumers, and the travel ecosystem. As a combined
company, Sabre and Farelogix will drive faster innovation in the
dynamic, highly competitive airline technology space, helping
airlines accelerate their growth and profitability while better
serving travelers. Sabre believes the transaction will bring needed
scale and investment to Farelogix and enable Sabre to accelerate
the delivery of the industry's first end-to-end NDC-enabled
solution for the retailing, distribution and fulfillment of
travel.
Sabre has committed to its airline customers and to the DOJ that
after the transaction it will continue to offer Farelogix products
at the same prices available today or lower, and to support and
invest in those products at the same level or higher. In addition,
Sabre has committed to offer to extend any existing Sabre GDS or
Farelogix Open Connect contract on the same terms, including price,
for a period of at least three years.
While Sabre and Farelogix do not believe that litigation is
appropriate in this matter, they have extended the termination date
of their acquisition agreement to April 30,
2020, allowing time for any challenge by the DOJ to be
resolved.
In the UK, the transaction is being reviewed by the UK
Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The CMA has issued an
Initial Enforcement Order (IEO), which is a standard procedural
step that allows Sabre and Farelogix to close the transaction while
preserving the CMA's ability to conclude its review of the deal
before the companies are integrated. The IEO does not constitute a
finding related to any effect of the transaction on competition.
The statutory deadline for the CMA to announce the outcome of its
Phase 1 review of the transaction is August
16, 2019, after which it may elect to initiate a Phase 2
review.
About Sabre
Sabre Corporation is the leading
technology provider to the global travel industry. Sabre's
software, data, mobile and distribution solutions are used by
hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotel properties to manage
critical operations, including passenger and guest reservations,
revenue management, flight, network and crew management. Sabre also
operates a leading global travel marketplace, which processes more
than $120 billion of estimated travel
spend annually by connecting travel buyers and suppliers.
Headquartered in Southlake, Texas,
USA, Sabre serves customers in more than 160 countries around the
world.
Forward-looking statements
Certain statements in this
release are forward-looking statements about trends, future events,
uncertainties and our plans and expectations of what may happen in
the future. Any statements that are not historical or current facts
are forward-looking statements. In many cases, you can identify
forward-looking statements by terms such as "will," "enable,"
"plan," "confident," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "may,"
"should," "would," "intend," "potential" or the negative of these
terms or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements
involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors
that may cause Sabre's actual results, performance or achievements
to be materially different from any future results, performances or
achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking
statements. The potential risks and uncertainties include,
among others, the outcome and effects of any litigation or
regulatory reviews regarding the acquisition described in this
release, and, if successfully completed, closing, integration and
effects of the acquisition described in this release, the financial
performance of the company expected to be acquired, dependency on
transaction volumes in the global travel industry, particularly air
travel transaction volumes, including from airlines' insolvency,
suspension of service or aircraft groundings, travel suppliers'
usage of alternative distribution models, exposure to pricing
pressure in the Travel Network business, changes affecting travel
supplier customers, maintenance of the integrity of our systems and
infrastructure and the effect of any security breaches, failure to
adapt to technological advancements, competition in the travel
distribution market and solutions markets, implementation of
software solutions, reliance on third parties to provide
information technology services, the implementation and effects of
new or renewed agreements, dependence on establishing, maintaining
and renewing contracts with customers and other counterparties and
collecting amounts due to us under these agreements, dependence on
relationships with travel buyers, our collection, processing,
storage, use and transmission of personal data and risks associated
with PCI compliance, our ability to recruit, train and retain
employees, including our key executive officers and technical
employees, the effects of litigation and regulatory investigations,
adverse global and regional economic and political conditions,
including, but not limited to, economic conditions in countries or
regions with traditionally high levels of exports to China or that have commodities-based economies
and the effect of "Brexit" and uncertainty due to related
negotiations, risks arising from global operations, reliance on the
value of our brands, failure to comply with regulations, use of
third-party distributor partners, the financial and business
effects of acquisitions, the effects of the implementation of new
accounting standards, and tax-related matters, including the effect
of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. More information about potential
risks and uncertainties that could affect our business and results
of operations is included in the "Risk Factors" section in our
Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on
August 1, 2019, in the "Risk Factors"
and "Forward-Looking Statements" sections in our Annual Report on
Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 15,
2019 and in our other filings with the SEC. Although we
believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking
statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future events,
outlook, guidance, results, actions, levels of activity,
performance or achievements. Readers are cautioned not to place
undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Unless required
by law, Sabre undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise
any forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events
after the date they are made.
SABR-F
Media
contact: sabrenews@sabre.com
Investor contact: sabre.investorrelations@sabre.com
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SOURCE Sabre Corporation