Travelex

Travelex was founded by Dorfman, and opened its first branch in central London in 1976.[3]

On 8 November 2000, it bought Thomas Cook's worldwide foreign exchange business for £440m, which significantly expanded its international operations.[4]

In February 2005, buy-out firm Apax Partners bought a majority stake in the company, but Dorfman retained 30% and continued to run the business.[5] Ian Meakins was CEO from 2006 to 2009, before becoming CEO of Ferguson plc (then known as Wolseley plc) .[6]

In early 2010, Travelex disclosed significant losses due to the interest payments on its large debts. It had pulled back from a stock market flotation the year before and said that it was "considering a range of potential financing structures".[7] Later that year it sold its card programme management division to MasterCard for £290 million to help reduce its debts.[8]

Travelex sponsored the National Theatre's discounted ticket scheme between 2003 and 2018.[9] In 2010 Lloyd Dorfman gave the theatre £10m, its biggest ever donation. Following redevelopment in 2013, the Cottesloe Theatre was renamed the Dorfman Theatre.

On 5 July 2011, Travelex sold its Global Business Payments division to Western Union for £606 million.[10]

By March 2014, Travelex had operations in 27 countries and more than 1,500 stores.[11]

In 2014, Apax Partners sold its majority stake of 51% to UAE-based Indian businessman B. R. Shetty valuing the company at approx £1bn. Shetty also owned UAE Exchange, a UAE-based money transfer business. The acquisition was supported by Abu Dhabi-based investment vehicle Centurion and completed in January 2015.[12][13]

In May 2019, Travelex, UAE Exchange and a number of other financial service businesses operated by B. R. Shetty were placed into a new holding company called Finablr, prior to an IPO on the London Stock Exchange that took place on 15 May that year.[14]

Mid 2019, Finablr began co-branding the businesses within its estate.

On 5 May 2020, despite remaining a Finablr-owned business, co-branding of the chain introduced in mid-2019 has been removed from its online presence.

On 26 May 2020, Travelex announced a wave of redundancies taking place imminently citing the Coronavirus pandemic.[15] The situation is likely to have been severely impacted additionally by its own issues within the Group including, but not limited, to the cyberattack of 31 Dec 2019 and ongoing serious fraud allegations at its parent business, Finablr. CEO Tony D'Souza said:

"While we remain unsure about what the future holds for Travelex, we know that we need to do everything we can in order to give the business the best chance of long-term viability. Sadly, this means that we anticipate that there will be a reduction in the number of roles, and therefore employees, from several teams across our global business"

On 31 December 2019, Travelex took its UK and international websites and mobile apps offline following a reported cyberattack,[16] an action also affecting a number of large third parties to whom Travelex provide a white-labelled service,[17] including the online travel money services of supermarket chains such as Tesco and Sainsbury's.[18][19]

On 7 January 2020, it was revealed that the entire company was being held to ransom by hackers. The hackers demanded payment in exchange for either restoration of IT systems or the preservation of customer data. It was understood that a deadline of seven days payment was set by the cybercriminals.[20] The company was criticised by security researcher Kevin Beaumont who said, "The public response from Travelex has been shockingly bad."[21] As of 12 January 2020, the services remained offline.[22]

The criminals had demanded £4.6 million ($6 million) in ransom from Travelex after infecting its network with Sodinokibi ransomware. They claimed to have copied more than 5 GB of users' personal data. Travelex had previously been warned that it was running vulnerable Pulse Secure virtual private networking (VPN) servers.[23][24][22]

On 13 January, the company issued a formal statement on the resumption of services and promised that a "recovery roadmap" would be issued later in the week. It stated that the business had continued to trade throughout January, with in-store services and ATMs available, and reiterated that there had been no evidence of loss of customer data.[25][26]

Despite the gradual restoration of services taking place, white-labelled online travel money services remained offline as of 13 January.[27]

On 16 January, the company announced that it had managed to restore the automated order placement used by several UK high street banks and that it would relaunch its international money transfer service by the end of the month.[28]

On 17 January, boss Tony D'Souza said, in a video message on a back-up website, that the IT system used by in-store staff was working again. There was no statement on when the firm's main UK or international consumer websites or mobile apps would be returned to service.[29]

As of early February, a number of the company's own websites including its main consumer website[30], and a number of its banking partners remained offline[31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] , and no further updates had been offered, with some of its commercial partners apparently considering their options[38]. Meanwhile the company's Australian and United Arab Emirates websites display errors.[39] [40]

On 9 April 2020, it was reported that Travelex had paid the cyberattack ransom fee of $2.3 million to the hackers in order to restore their systems. While paying the ransomware fee may have restored the Travelex network, for those whose data was potentially compromised, they are stuck in limbo and no detail of this possible breach has been made available.[41][42]

On 12 March 2020, Finablr, of which Travelex is a part, announced that it was taking steps to assess accurately its current liquidity and cashflow position,[43] with shares trading at circa 7 pence, down 97% from 11 December 2019 when their value peaked at 215 pence.[44]

On 16 March 2020, the business was suspended from the London Stock Exchange as it announced it was in danger of collapse having identified circa $100m (£81m) of undisclosed financing, which meant it no longer had any certainty over its financial position. Simultaneously, Promoth Manghat, Group CEO left the business[45][46]. The business also stated that it was no longer able to provide certain payment processing services, however failed to address what services this entailed. Administrators Kroll were appointed to carry out an independent investigation into its finances.[47]

On 16 March 2020, sister business UAE Exchange suspended all new transactions citing "certain operational challenges" in an emailed statement.[48]

On 17 March 2020, Finablr, of which Travelex is a part, announced that it has engaged an accountancy firm to undertake rapid contingency planning for a potential insolvency appointment,[49] with administration likely later in the week.[50]

On 18 March 2020, Finablr, of which Travelex is a part, announced that its UAE Exchange division had been taken over by the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates with immediate effect. The Central Bank also stated that it had commenced an examination of the business in order to verify its compliance with laws and regulations in the region.[51]

On 29 March 2020, EY (Ernst & Young) resigned as auditor of the group business citing a number of concerns relating to board composition and financial governance.[52]

On 9 April 2020, shares in Finablr, of which Travelex is a part, were suspended from the London Stock Exchange. The business announced the resignation of Promoth Manghat as Finablr chief executive with immediate effect the same day, as well as the appointments of administrators Kroll and Houlihan Lokey to carry out an independent investigation into the group's finances. Among other localised authorities the UK's Financial Conduct Authority and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates are also investigating the business's finances.[53]

On 22 April 2020, Travelex announced that it had placed itself up for sale with immediate effect and was working with administrators PwC on the sale process. The business stated that it had "communicated this intention to Finablr".[54][55]

During April 2020, most global operations of Finablr of which Travelex is a part, were suspended in their entirety with Travelex being an exception continuing to provide a basic service. The group's other fascias UAE Exchange, Xpress Money, TimesofMoney, Remit2India, Unimoni and Ditto (which had ceased previously) all display suspension notices on their respective websites:

"[division name] is temporarily unavailable for undertaking transactions. We regret the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding and cooperation as we endeavour to restore the service"

On 30 April 2020, Finablr announced previously-undeclared debts of around $1.3 billion had been identified by Houlihan Lokey and Kroll as part of their investigations, adding that it:

"cannot exclude the possibility that some of the proceeds of these borrowings may have been used for purposes outside of the Finablr Group"

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