Oyo to acquire @Leisure for Rs 2,900 crore

Chennai: Oyo Hotels and Homes will acquire Amsterdam-based vacation rental company @Leisure Group for 369.5 million euros, or roughly Rs 2,900 crore, from Axel Springer. The acquired company will strengthen Oyo’s home business in Europe and also add 1.15 lakh units globally.

Oyo, which is well-funded by SoftBank with $1 billion in 2018 and by over $150 million by Airbnb-led investors, went on to buy out @Leisure Group in an all-cash deal.

@Leisure Group, through its Belvilla, DanCenter, and Danland brands, offers more than 30,000-fully managed holiday homes across 13 countries in Europe. Its Traum-Ferienwohnungen brand offers a subscription-based home management services in over 85,000 homes across 50 countries. It offers holiday homes, cottages and holiday parks in more than 300 cities across Europe and more than 2.8 million holidaymakers from over 118 countries make bookings every year with @Leisure Group. Last year, it achieved a record Ebitda of 24 million euros.

As for Oyo, its home business, launched in 2017, has over 15,000 villas and apartment units globally. The acquisition will combine OYO’s capabilities of asset management and technology with the presence, local know-how and category-specific expertise of @Leisure Group in the sphere of vacation rentals.

“With Europe spearheading the vacation and urban home rental trend globally, @Leisure Group is uniquely positioned to capitalise on its experience and insights aided with Oyo’s full stack approach towards building the world’s largest global vacation rentals business. If one were to look at Europe alone, there is an ever-increasing demand for vacation homes with an increasing trend of booking an entire home,” said Oyo’s Global Chief Strategy Officer, Maninder Gulati.

The acquisition is also a right step for the sixth largest hotel brand towards becoming the largest by 2023.

“We see vacation homes as a unique opportunity with 115,000 units of homes now getting added to our already growing count of beautiful homes and we are excited to continue maintaining our global industry leadership. The @Leisure Group is a great partner and we are excited to broad base their offerings. @Leisure Group has proven capabilities in helping develop Europe into a vacation rentals hotspot and we are keen to leverage their competencies towards ensuring beautiful vacation rental and urban homes experience for millions of tourists from every part of the world,” said Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & Group CEO of Oyo.

Tobias Wann, CEO of @Leisure Group will join Oyo’s leadership group as CEO, Vacation Homes, Oyo Global.