Great Rail Journeys

Headquartered: York, United Kingdom

Investment date: 2013

Exit date: 2018

Travel

https://www.greatrail.com/

At a Glance

300

Adventures Available

Countries

3.6x

Multiple on Exit

How we helped

Great Rail Journeys is the UK’s market leading operator of escorted holidays by rail. With over forty-five years’ experience, it offers a fantastic choice of holidays with popular itineraries including a tour of India’s “Golden Triangle”, exploring the Swiss Alps on the Glacier Express or an iconic journey across Africa from Dar es Salaam to Cape Town.

People & culture:

During ECI’s investment we strengthened the senior management team with the recruitment of Peter Liney as CEO, as well as a new Head of Operations.
GRJ group employees grew by 30% to 150+ employees during our investment, and these full time GRJ employees were supplemented by 320 experienced tour managers who take charge of logistical arrangements for the holidays, working with local guides to provide expert insights to GRJ customers.

Internationalisation:

We worked closely with Peter and the team on the business’ intenationalisation strategy, tapping into new source markets for its rail tours including Australia and the US following the establishment of a New York office in 2017.
Successful penetration of international source markets led to circa 10% of FY 2018 group revenues coming from international source markets (principally Australia and the US). This was achieved in less than three years and provided a key part of GRJ’s future growth.

Sales & marketing:

We helped the senior team on a pricing project, and the addition of new product lines such as the development of GRJ’s river cruise operation.

In 2018 we sold Great Rail Journeys to Duke Street achieving a multiple of 3.6x and an IRR of 29%.

After five great years of working with ECI, who have helped us to internationalise the business, add new product lines, grow our profits and develop our management team, we are very excited to embark on the next chapter of our story.

Peter Liney

CEO, Great Rail Journeys

How was it working with ECI? The Great Rail Journeys story

On a day-to-day basis or you know, when we meet them, I mean, the really good thing about ECI is firstly, they listen. So if something’s coming towards us or something’s happening in the business, their instinct is to listen, not to tell.

And they absolutely have sector expertise. They understand the sector that we’re in, the travel sector, but they never try to tell me or the guys who work for me how to do the jobs.

And their default seems to be very calm and thoughtful rather than to sort of suddenly lunge in and demand that we do things or demand that we shift the business, you know, take U-turns or whatever. They always want to seem to understand first, listen and then we agree a plan of action.

At some point in the process you’re going through, you’re going to have to choose a private equity partner. And what I would say about ECI, why I would choose them is that they genuinely listen to you. They genuinely are partners. They bring expertise across the patch and they really seek to work with you to grow your business.

And I think it’s a very positive and actually frankly, it’s a very enjoyable partnership that you have.