Founded from a single
retail outlet in London by CEO Lloyd Dorfman in 1976,
Travelex has since evolved into a diversified worldwide
money business. Its wide variety of consumer and business
services, and the group’s unique entrepreneurial
culture has provided Travelex with the platform to grow
into the word’s largest foreign exchange specialist.
In March 2001, Travelex completed the acquisition of
Thomas Cook Global & Financial Services for more
than $700m (£440m). The acquisition combined two
businesses which strongly complemented each other in
operational, geographical and financial terms, particularly
in the areas of corporate foreign exchange, retail travel
money, and outsourced foreign exchange services.
In addition to the expansion of its corporate foreign
exchange and retail businesses, this acquisition and
others added a number of new products and services to
the Travelex portfolio; the world’s second largest
(and oldest) traveller’s cheque business, a range
of innovative pre-paid debit card products, a wholesale
banknote operation and a travel insurance business in
the US distributed through more than 7,000 clients.
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The Travelex Group is backed by more than 150 years
of experience and expertise in foreign exchange and
has achieved dynamic growth, increasing annual turnover
by more than 162% in 2001 to $28bn and increasing profit
from operations by more than 100%.
As a privately held company, Travelex’s stock
does not trade on a public exchange. However, our long-term,
high-yield bonds have been favourably covered by several
investment banks and analysts. In a June 2002 review
of our 10-year bonds, Deutsche Bank stated: “Travelex
is effectively very lowly levered. We maintain our BUY
recommendation, the only one in the retail sector.”
Corporate Foreign Exchange
The Corporate Foreign Exchange business operates trading
floors in Toronto, Sydney, London, Singapore and Hong
Kong. Corporate FX offers a wide range of foreign exchange
and risk solutions to both corporate clients and financial
institutions. Travelex delivers solutions to more than
14,000 companies worldwide, including dozens of Fortune
500 companies in the US.
Core products and services include:
• Foreign currency drafts
• International wire transfers
• International check collections and cash letters
• FX risk management: forward contracts and options.
Adopting a multi-channel approach, customers have the
option of trading with Travelex via telephone or online,
through Travelex’s award winning system. Travelex
was one of the first companies of its kind to offer
its service on the internet and continues to be a leader
in this area.
Corporate FX’s goal is to help clients move money
around the world to maximum advantage and with minimal
effort. To that end, each client is assigned a dedicated
Account Manager and a Corporate Trader to provide assistance
and expertise to navigate the sometimes complex world
of international commerce. As well, our Business Solutions
Group creates customized solutions to integrate treasury
and cash management systems with Travelex’s online
engine to increase efficiencies and minimize or eliminate
manual processes.
Travelex has developed a tailored
offering for the
financial institution market. In addition to private
labelling our online system, Travelex offers intensive
training and marketing support to clients in order to
assist them in successfully downstreaming these services
to their customers. As a non-bank provider of these
services, Travelex is ideally positioned as a partner
to, and not a competitor of, financial institutions.
Retail Foreign Exchange
Travelex operates the largest retail airport network
in the world with over 650 locations worldwide including
major gateways at London, New York and Hong Kong. Over
40% of the world’s airline passengers, some 1.3
billion people, pass through Travelex gateways annually.
In 2002, the global network served 40 customers every
minute.
Travelex Currency Services
Travelex has a history of building enduring relationships
with partners around the world. In October 1999, in
association with Royal Bank of Scotland, Travelex added
to its corporate services portfolio with the acquisition
of Transpay, the foreign currency processing service
of Barclays Bank. Travelex Currency Services (TCS) now
provides foreign currency services to some of the UK’s
largest financial institutions.
In the US, Currency Services offers foreign currency
banknote outsourcing to financial institutions and travel
providers. Extending our strategy of multi-channel delivery,
traditional call centre operations are complemented
by a unique online application through which the purchase
of foreign travel money is streamlined. “My Travel
Wallet” is an online ordering application that
appears on thousands of partner sites enabling consumers
to place travel money orders directly on the internet.
The business-to-business version, “Currency Online”,
allows financial institutions to manage the purchase
and sale of foreign currency on behalf of their customers
quickly and easily.
Travellers cheques
Travelex issues travellers cheques under both the Visa
and Thomas Cook MasterCard brands. Travelex was recently
awarded the world’s largest Travelers Cheque account:
the American Automobile Association. Travelex now delivers
Visa branded travelers cheques and prepaid cards, as
well as foreign currency, to AAA’s more than 45
million members through their club network and online.
Travel insurance
Travelex Insurances Services, a leading travel protection
provider in the US, offers protection plans to consumers,
travel agencies and tour providers. Plans are available
through the Travelex airport network, through 7,000
travel providers and online at travelexinsurance.com.
Sponsorship
Travelex has recently embarked upon a series of sponsorship
and branding opportunities designed to reinforce the
core attributes of its brand. Last year, we became an
official sponsor of the Panasonic Toyota Formula 1 Racing
team, joining existing sponsors AOL Time Warner and
Yamaha. We have just renewed our sponsorship of the
world champion Australian Cricket Team, and are sponsoring
Sky coverage in the UK of the World Cup Cricket event
in 2003.
Travelex delivers retail, corporate and wholesale currency
services to more than 29 million customers each year.
The company has extensive North American operations
in both retail and corporate services. Major offices
are located in New York, Omaha, and Toronto, Canada.
Over 100 retail branches are located in US and Canadian
airports – including San Francisco, Atlanta, and
all of the New York area airports – with about
50 additional retail branches in North American city
centres.
Headquartered in London, the Group employs approximately
5,000 staff, with offices in over 31 countries and business
relationships in 97 countries. 3i, Europe’s largest
venture capital company, is a 33% shareholder.
For more information about products
and services from
Travelex in the US or Europe, contact:
Omaha Office
Michael Ambrose
Tel: +1 800 225 3433
London Office
Tony Wilson
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7400 4000
Website: www.travelex.com
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