History of Travelex
He opened the first bureau de change in Southampton Row, off London’s Holborn, in UK, after a career in investment banking with First National since 1973 and a desire to be his own boss. Lloyd learned the ropes for such an operation from his father, who had owned an exchange bureau. He was just 24 when he opened the first location with a GBP 25,000 loan from a family friend. The friend was repaid after three years. The opening of the first location was done strategically before the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, which packed London with tourists. In 1986, the company made a breakthrough by forcing its way into Heathrow's Terminal 4 as the first independent foreign exchange operator. The company fought two reversals just to be included in the tender process before getting accepted into the brand new terminal at Heathrow, the world’s busiest airport. Before that, the spots at the airport were held by clearing banks. Following expansion into airports, the company tried waters in international markets. Initially, there were some setbacks, such as losing a close race for an important tender at Sydney International Airport in 1989. However, this setback led to the novel approach of the company setting up currency exchange units in domestic airport terminals with the permission from the Australian airport terminal operator Ansett Airlines. This innovation led to Australia becoming Travelex’s third largest market. One of the major growth strategies for the company was to tie up with Abbey National in 1994, to supply foreign exchange services to the company's 750 locations. In 1998, Travelex was facing one of the biggest challenges in recent history for foreign exchange companies: the introduction of the euro. This pressure led to the departure of two institutional shareholders, who sold their stake on December 30th, 1998, to 3i, a private equity company, just days before the introduction of the single European currency. Soon after, Travelex acquired Transpay from Barclays. Transpay was the bank's internal travel money department serving Barclays and other financial institutions. In 2001, the company bought Thomas Cook’s financial-services arm, which effectively tripled the size of the firm, for pounds 440m. Dorfman sold half his 63 per cent stake in the company to Apax Partners, the private equity fund, in 2005. Today, Travelex is present in 93 airports around the world, is still headquartered in London, and operates in over 30 countries and employs 6,000 people worldwide. |