LBO France’s Cityvision Group of SLT (Société des lignes touristiques) and SELT (Société d’exploitation des lignes touristiques), have sold L’OpenTour Paris, to RATP Développement.
L’OpenTour Paris is an open-top hop-on hop-off bus tours service, carrying over 750,000 passengers each year. Since its creation in 1998, it has become Paris’ leading sightseeing service, regularly offering new and innovative services to effectively meet the changing needs of its customers.
Since L’OpenTour Paris was acquired by LBO France in 2008, it has strengthened its position as Paris’ market leader with constantly increasing passenger numbers and revenues (up 50% between 2008 and 2014).
On completion of the sale, L’OpenTour Paris operations will be taken over by RATP Dev (a subsidiary of the RATP Group) and integrated into its new Sightseeing department, which offers tours in the three most visited cities in the world; Paris, London and New York.
Furthermore, LBO France has granted an exclusive option to a candidate to acquire the Cityvision (motor coach and minibus excursions) and La Marina de Bercy (dinner cruises) companies. This transaction should be finalised before the end of July. LBO France is also in advanced negotiations regarding the sale of L’OpenTour operations in Lyon, Nice and Marseille, which are not included in the perimeter of the L’OpenTour Paris transaction.
Dominik Zwerger, Director, LBO Small Cap Hexagone, LBO France, says: “We are proud of having accompanied the L’OpenTour Paris management team over the last seven years and together made it the leading open-top hop-on hop-off bus sightseeing tour in Paris. We identified L’OpenTour Paris as a strategic asset in an increasingly concentrated market back in 2008 and the recent consolidation operations in the sector have validated our original view. RATP Dev has the ambition to develop this business internationally and I have no doubt that they will seamlessly integrate L’OpenTour Paris into their Sightseeing department and seize the development opportunities that arise.”
