Mumbai, July 14: Domestic travel portal Yatra will merge with Nasdaq-listed Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corporation (TRTL), a deal that values the former at $218 million.
TRTL is a special purpose acquisition company formed for mergers, buyouts or similar business combinations.
Yatra Online and TRTL today announced that they had entered into a definitive agreement for the merger.
Yatra will be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the symbol YTRA.
A press statement said the combined company would continue to be led by Yatra's management team under the leadership of chief executive and co-founder Dhruv Shringi.
Yatra's rival MakeMyTrip is also listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol MMYT.
Launched in August 2006, Yatra, through its yatra.com website, is an online shop for travel-related services aimed at both leisure and business travellers in India.
The website provides information, pricing and booking services for domestic and international air travel, hotels, holiday packages and bus and railway reservations.
More than 60,000 hotels in India can be accessed through the Yatra site.
Yatra customers booked more than 2.8 million air travel reservations and hotel stays with the total transaction worth more than $900 million during the fiscal ended March 2016, an increase of 25 per cent from the previous year.
Around 74 per cent of the transactions are from repeat clients.
The transaction is expected to be completed in October, subject to the approval of TRTL stockholders and other customary closing conditions.
TRTL was founded by Nathan Leight and co-sponsored by affiliates of Terrapin Partners LLC and Macquarie Group.
Under the terms of the proposed transaction, it is estimated that current shareholders of Yatra will continue to own at least 35 per cent of the issued and outstanding shares in the combined entity.
Yatra's investors include Reliance Venture Asset Management, TV18 Group, Norwest Venture Partners, Intel Capital, IDG Ventures India and Vertex Venture Holdings Ltd.
"This transaction gives us substantial additional resources to support our growth and the continued improvement of our integrated online and mobile platforms," Shringi said.
