Thomas Cook India, LKP Forex amalgamation gets High Court approval

Mumbai, Jan 18 (UNI) Thomas Cook today said that the Bombay High Court, in its order dated January 12 this year, has approved the amalgamation of LKP Forex Ltd with Thomas Cook (India) Ltd (TCIL).

It may be recalled that in June last year, TCIL and the LKP Group entered into a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) to explore the amalgamation of LKP Forex Limited with TCIL through a scheme of amalgamation to be approved by the shareholders of both the Companies, the regulatory authorities and the Bombay High Court.

In a statement here, TCIL Managing Director Madhavan Menon said ''The combined businesses of TCIL and LKP Forex has given us a leadership position in the foreign exchange business and our main focus will be to consolidate the businesses in order to maximize synergy benefits and cost efficiencies. I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome LKP employees to the Thomas Cook India family.'' Mr Parag Mehta, formerly of LKP, takes over as the Head of Foreign Exchange business at TCIL and the company aims to complete the entire integration process by February 2007, after which all the existing LKP branches will function as full-fledged branches of TCIL. With that, TCIL will have a national foot print of almost 200 branches in 55 cities and a head count of around 3,000 individuals, making it the largest travel and tour operator in India.

TCIL had recommended the share swap ratio of 11:20 (11 shares of TCIL were issued against 20 shares of LKP) for equity shares and 38:1 (38 shares of TCIL were issued against 1 share of LKP) for preference shares. The equity shares will have a lock in for 3 years.

UNI