Thomas Cook Group

Thomas Cook Group plc
legal form	plc
ISIN	GB00B1VYCH82
founding	2007
Seat	London
management	Peter Fankhauser ( CEO ) Frank Meysman ( Chairman ) Michael Healy ( CFO )
Number of employees	21,263 ( FY 2017/18)
sales	9.6 billion pounds ( FY 2017/18) (around 10.6 billion euros )
Branch	tourism
Website	thomascookgroup.com
As of September 30, 2018

Advertisement from Thomas Cook & Son (around 1900)

Cover letter from Thomas Cook & Son for sleeper travelers (1924)

Boeing 757 of Thomas Cook Airlines

Logo from 1974 to 1989

Logo from 1989 to 2001

Logo from 2001 to 2013

Thomas Cook Travel Agency

The Thomas Cook Group plc is a listed tourism group based in London . It was created in 2007 through the merger of Thomas Cook AG with the MyTravel Group. The Thomas Cook Group operates its own airlines, and its subsidiaries in German-speaking countries include Neckermann-Reisen , Condor Flugdienst and Bucher Reisen & Öger Tours GmbH .

On the night of September 22nd to 23rd, 2019, Thomas Cook Group plc applied for compulsory liquidation. The British civil aviation authority (CAA) has announced the cessation of business and the cancellation of all flights and announced a return campaign for vacationers.

history

Company formation

Thomas Cook was born in Melbourne ( South Derbyshire ) on November 22, 1808 . In July 1841, the Baptist preacher and publisher of Christian scriptures organized a train ride from Leicester to Loughborough for 500 travelers to a meeting of the abstinence movement . The aim of the trip was to bring together members of various temperance associations.

Thomas Cook organized the first trips to Liverpool in 1845 and the first tour of Europe for British tourists in 1855, thus beginning the era of package tourism . It led via Brussels , Cologne , Heidelberg , Baden-Baden , Strasbourg and Paris back to London via Le Havre or Dieppe . His son John Mason Cook (* 1834) joined his father's business in 1864 and oversaw the first trip to America in 1866. In 1868 Thomas Cook introduced the hotel voucher , an important instrument for package tours.

In 1869 the first Thomas Cook Nile cruise with a steamer was offered. Further trips that year led to Palestine and the opening of the Suez Canal . In the years to come, the company set up its own travel agencies in Brussels, Cologne, Paris and Vienna. The company "Thomas Cook & Son" was founded in 1871 - John Mason Cook was an official partner. Due to the great demand for organized boat trips through the Suez Canal to the east, Thomas Cook opened his first office in Cairo in 1872 . The first trip around the world, covering 40,000 kilometers, began on September 26, 1872 in Liverpool and lasted 222 days. Thomas Cook invented another important element for tourism in 1874. In New York, Thomas Cook's travel credit letter, a forerunner to the modern traveler 's check , was introduced. John Mason Cook relied on the internationalization of the family business: from 1879 onwards he distributed editions of The Excursionist - a kind of special offer newspaper that had been founded by his father in 1851 - also overseas. He informed customers in France, Germany, India, Australia, Asia, America and the Middle East about his offers. Thomas Cook withdrew from the business in the same year. His son became the company's sole managing partner. In the British campaign to rescue Charles George Gordons from Sudan ( Gordon Relief Expedition ) in 1884/85, the British army lent steam ships from Thomas Cook to bring their troops to Khartoum .

Thomas Cook died on July 18, 1892 at the age of 83, and his son John Mason Cook also died in 1899 at the age of 65. After his death, his sons Frank Henry, Ernest Edward and Thomas Albert took over the company until it was sold in 1928.

See also: Thomas Cook and Son

World market leader Thomas Cook and Son

In 1900, Thomas Cook and Son became the world leader in the travel industry. In 1919 the company sold the first airline tickets .

Frank Henry and Ernest Edward Cook sold the company in 1928 to its only international competitor: the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et des Grands Express Européens , based in Paris and Brussels .

After the Second World War, Thomas Cook & Son became part of the British Railways national railway in 1948 under the British Transport Holding Company. The company returned to private ownership in 1972 through a consortium of Midland Bank, Trust House Forte and the Automobile Association. In 1977, Midland Bank became the sole owner of Thomas Cook & Son. In 1990, Thomas Cook acquired the foreign exchange trading business of Deak International Inc., making it the world's largest foreign exchange dealer.

In 1992, Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB) and LTU jointly took over Thomas Cook. Two years later, the company bought Interpayment Services Ltd., the Travelers Checks subsidiary of Barclays Bank , and became the world's largest provider of travelers checks outside the USA. The corporate travel service was sold to American Express . In 1995 WestLB bought the 10 percent stake in LTU in Thomas Cook and thus made the company its 100 percent subsidiary.

In 1995 the Thomas Cook homepage was also opened on the Internet. Thomas Cook was the first British tourism group to offer trips, travelers checks, foreign exchange, travel guides and seat inquiries for flights on the Internet. In 1996, Thomas Cook acquired Sunworld, the fifth largest short trip operator in Great Britain and Ireland, and Time Off, the European city break specialist; In 1998, Sunworld bought the Flying Colors Leisure Group, including the Flying Colors airline and the brands Sunset and Club 18-30. The "Global Services" division was established with which the company offered tourists and business travelers comprehensive service packages for travel around the world. In 1999 the umbrella brand JMC (John Mason Cook) was founded. JMC comprised the brands Sunworld, Sunset, Flying Colors, Inspirations and Caledonian Airways and was from now on the third largest British travel and airline company .

The Preussag (then a subsidiary of WestLB and forerunner of TUI ) bought in 1999 24.9% of Thomas Cook shares; at the same time Thomas Cook and the British part of the travel business of the Carlson Leisure Group merged to become Thomas Cook Holdings; as a result of the merger, Preussag held a stake of 50.1%. 2001 Thomas Cook Holdings was taken over by the competitor C&N Touristic (today Thomas Cook AG) after TUI had taken over the British competitor Thomson Travel on condition of the sale of Thomas Cook.

Neckermann Reisen

In 1962, Josef Neckermann expanded the range of products offered by his mail order company Neckermann Versand to include “Vacation trips for everyone”. For this project, he began offering air travel for the first time in 1963 in collaboration with the Swiss holiday company Hotelplan . The first prospectus, a six-page brochure, appeared as a supplement to the mail-order catalog. In order to further expand the travel division, he founded a subsidiary two years later under the name Neckermann und Reisen GmbH & Co (NUR) .

In 1976/77 Karstadt took over the ailing Neckermann Group including the tourism division with NUR via a majority stake. Shortly afterwards, the tourism company GUT Reisen, which was also acquired and was founded in 1969 by the German trade unions and the Bank für Gemeinwirtschaft (BfG), was incorporated into this. From this point on, NUR-Reisen was also sold through Karstadt department stores. 1978/79 was the NUR German market leader for long-distance travel: Around 21,000 guests traveled to the Far East. The subsidiary "Neckermann Vliegreizen" was founded in Belgium in the same year.

In 1981, NUR took over the whole of Karstadt. In 1982/83 Neckermann and Reisen created the new umbrella brand "NUR Touristic" to create a new corporate identity . NUR Touristic started a multi-brand concept. In the winter of 1983/84 the new “Terramar” brand published its first catalog. In 1984/85 "NUR Touristic" sold its foreign subsidiary "Neckermann Austria". In 1986/87 NUR Touristic concluded the best business year in its corporate history to date: The number of guests grew by 17.5% to over a million, and sales totaled 1.43 billion marks. In the anniversary year 1988/89, NUR Touristic presented the first special catalog “For travel agencies in the GDR” at the first Neckermann press conference in the - still existing - German Democratic Republic. In the first year of reunification in 1990, NUR opened fourteen travel agencies of its own in the new federal states. In October 1990 the foundation stone was laid for the new NUR head office in Oberursel im Taunus, which was inaugurated on May 15, 1992. NUR took a stake in Neckermann Austria again in 1991 - 49% of the company was acquired by the Swiss Kuoni group. In the same year the German operator Paneuropa Reisen and the largest Belgian air travel operator "Sunsnacks" were acquired.

In 1994 NUR acquired another German tour operator, Bucher Reisen . In 1995, NUR had increased the number of its guests worldwide to 3.4 million and its turnover to 3.51 billion DM. NUR Touristic took over All Air, the Belgian market leader for road trips and winter sports, and thus became the largest tour operator on the Belgian market. Holiday Land, NUR's new franchise travel agency brand, was founded. The number of guests at NUR worldwide rose in the 1995 financial year - with sales of DM 4.09 billion - to 3.95 million. In 1996 NUR expanded its business to Eastern Europe: "Neckermann Polska" was founded. At the end of the financial year 1996 the NUR recorded 4.89 million passengers and a turnover of 4.85 billion DM.

Part of C&N Touristic since 1997

In 1997 Lufthansa and Karstadt decided to pool their tourism activities in a joint holding company. For this purpose, the two companies founded C&N Touristic AG on November 1st by merging NUR Touristic and Condor Flugdienst . Both shareholders held 50% of the group. NUR Touristik belonged to 90% of C&N Touristik and 10% directly to Karstadt , as did Condor , which was 90% to C&N Touristik and 10% to Lufthansa. The C&N Touristic covered the value chain of tour operators, flights, sales, hotels and service agencies and was in direct competition with TUI .

Stefan Pichler, previously Head of Sales at Lufthansa, was appointed spokesman for the tourism group's executive board in March 2000. Another member of the board was Willi Schoppen. In July 2000, the group completely took over the tourism division of the travel company Havas Voyages , France, making it the first integrated European tourism group with a presence in the French market. Havas Voyages' tourism division was the market leader in France with a market share of over 20%. At the end of the 1999/2000 financial year, 10.9 million people traveled with the brands of C&N Touristic , with sales totaling 9.7 billion DM.

The following year, C&N Touristic took over the British travel company Thomas Cook Holdings and became the second largest tourism group in Europe and number three worldwide. At the end of June 2001, C&N Touristic was renamed to Thomas Cook AG. In December 2001 the airline Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium was founded as a 100 percent subsidiary of Thomas Cook. In the 2000/2001 financial year, 14.1 million guests booked their trips with Thomas Cook AG brands . The group generated sales of 7.9 billion euros.

In 2002, the Thomas Cook brand - previously used as a company name and in sales and service - was used in all markets and at all levels of the tourism value chain . This meant that Thomas Cook was also introduced as an operator in Germany and that the holiday airlines became image carriers with a new design.

The head office of the former NUR Touristic GmbH in Oberursel has since been the seat of both the German Thomas Cook AG and the tour operator TC Touristik , in which Thomas Cook holds 90% and Karstadt Quelle 10%. In September 2005, 75.1% of the shares in Aldiana were sold to the Spanish group of companies Grupo Santana Cazorla .

Condor airplane with Thomas Cook logo.

In December 2006 Lufthansa and Karstadt Quelle signed a letter of intent according to which the Lufthansa Group will transfer its 50 percent stake in Thomas Cook to Karstadt Quelle for a purchase price of around EUR 800 million. At the same time it was agreed that the Lufthansa Group's equity stake in Condor would be increased from 10% to 24.9% and that the Lufthansa Group would also receive Condor's shares in the Turkish charter airline Sun Express . Karstadt Quelle can take over the Lufthansa Group's 24.9% stake in Condor two years after the conclusion of the purchase agreement (call option). In return, the Lufthansa Group has a put option on Karstadt Quelle's capital share (75.1%). If both companies do not use their options, the Lufthansa Group has a right of first refusal on the Thomas Cook shares in Condor. With this share regulation, Condor's take-off and landing rights ( slots ) were also to be secured outside of Europe, especially for the Lufthansa Group, and buying up by foreign investors was initially to be avoided. The takeover officially took place in February 2007. In March 2007, Thomas Cook separated from their Thai daughter Thomas Cook Thailand.

Merger with MyTravel

In February 2007 Karstadt Quelle announced that the British tour operator MyTravel Group would be taken over and integrated into the Thomas Cook tourism group. Thomas Cook is said to have its headquarters in London and to be listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). 52% are to be held by Karstadt Quelle and 48% by the MyTravel Group. Since the takeover of MyTravel made the tourism division the largest division of Karstadt Quelle, the holding company Karstadt Quelle was renamed Arcandor at the same time .

In mid-March 2009, the new CEO of Karstadt Quelle, renamed Arcandor , Karl-Gerhard Eick , also took over the chairmanship of the supervisory board of the Thomas Cook Group; he was replaced by his previous deputy Michael Beckett in the course of Arcandor's insolvency in September 2009. The CEO of the Thomas Cook Group is Peter Fankhauser. Since March 3, 2015 he has also been Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Thomas Cook AG in Germany.

Development since the merger

In spring 2009, Arcandor had taken out loans of around 1.5 billion euros, of which 940 million euros were still open at the end of August 2009. A banking consortium made up of BayernLB , Commerzbank and Royal Bank of Scotland therefore sold their approx. 376 million shares on September 10, 2009 on the London Stock Exchange. The pledged stake of 43.9% was sold for 240 pence per share for a total of 1.03 billion euros within a few hours, mainly to institutional investors.

In July 2010 it was announced that Thomas Cook will take over the Turkey specialist Öger Tours for around 30 million euros. Öger Tours carried 400,000 passengers in 2009 and posted a loss of 7.3 million euros on a turnover of 256 million euros. The business units Öger Türk Tur and Holiday Plan in Turkey remain in the possession of the founder and entrepreneur Vural Öger . In July 2011 it was announced that the Thomas Cook Group would take over the majority of Intourist in the Russian travel market. Intourist is the oldest travel company in Russia; 650,000 people traveled with VAO Intourist in 2009. In 2017, plans became known to found their own Russian airline. Thomas Cook bought Tour Vital in August 2011. The two companies have been cooperating with each other since 2009. Package tours are offered with medical supervision. Tour Vital was sold again by Thomas Cook on October 1st, 2018.

In 2013, the company founded a so-called social media listening lab . Similar to the Dell Command Center , specially trained employees monitor every post, tweet , blog post and reviews on the web that has to do with Thomas Cook.

Rescue attempts and bankruptcy

Despite the overall increase in demand for package holidays, the group was able to 2019 not since the merger accumulated debt, which 1.9 billion by March 2019 pounds sterling amounted (GBP), break down - at the same time he was forced to half-year loss of 1.5 billion . GBP to explain the half-yearly financial statements in March 2019, which prompted the rating agency Standard & Poor's to rate Thomas Cook 's creditworthiness only with CCC + . In the months that followed, the group increasingly lost confidence in its banks. At the end of August 2019, the group said it was negotiating a £ 900 million rescue package with the Chinese Fosun group, but needed another £ 200 million (€ 227 million) to avert bankruptcy at the insistence of the main banks. In addition to traditional equity investors, there were also bond investors who were insured by a credit default swap (CDS), including the hedge funds TT International, Whitebox Advisors and Kite Lake Capital. In the event of insolvency, they will receive the full sum insured. "Since the rescue plan provided for a conversion of the Cook bonds into shares and thus the CDS contracts would have expired, the funds are said to have prevented an emergency rescue." The group failed to get the necessary money from the investors.

On September 23, 2019, Thomas Cook ceased business; At the time, around 600,000 people had traveled by Thomas Cook flight. According to the UK authorities, all flights will be canceled. On the same day, Thomas Cook announced that it would initiate bankruptcy proceedings with immediate effect.

The British government launched the largest peacetime repatriation campaign, code-named “Matterhorn”, to bring around 150,000 holidaymakers back to the UK. Foreign Minister Dominic Raab assured that no one would be stranded and Transport Minister Grant Shapps announced on Twitter : “We will bring everyone home.” British media reported of tourists who were temporarily detained in a hotel for outstanding payment obligations.

Outside the UK, subsidiaries successively declared bankruptcy:

• On September 25, 2019, Thomas Cook GmbH, Thomas Cook Touristik GmbH and Bucher Reisen & Öger Tours GmbH filed for bankruptcy in Germany. Insolvency applications are being examined for other German Thomas Cook companies. The 2,000 employees will receive wages and salaries through the insolvency payment until November 2019. An application was made for a state bridging loan of 375 million euros. On November 21, 2019, the insolvency administrator announced that Neckermann Reisen, Air Marin and Thomas Cook Signature would cease operations in Germany in calendar week 48.
• Thomas Cook Austria AG, the third largest tour operator in Austria, filed for insolvency at the Vienna Commercial Court on September 25th. A renovation seems impossible. According to the AKV credit protection association of September 26, 2019, "the company is not intended to continue as a going concern."
• On September 30, it became known that the Dutch subsidiary had filed for bankruptcy.
• In France, Thomas Cook France declared bankruptcy on October 1st; 780 employees are affected here.
• At the beginning of October, the Spanish Thomas Cook Airlines Balearics also filed for bankruptcy, which affects around 450 employees, but business operations will initially continue.

In addition, the collapse of Thomas Cook has led to considerable difficulties for countless partner companies; in the press was u. a. reports that in Spain, for example, up to 500 hotels would get into trouble and could close.

The Scandinavian subsidiaries, which were bundled in the Ving Group, were taken over on October 30, 2019 by a group of investors around the Norwegian Petter Stordalen . Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia was then renamed Sunclass Airlines .

The German federal government announced in December 2019 that it would pay compensation totaling 177 million euros for the bankruptcy. The background to this is that the amount that tour operators have to insure against in the event of insolvency is limited by law to 110 million euros, but the actual compensation claims of holidaymakers far exceed this amount and the federal government wants to forestall possible lawsuits by holidaymakers.

Breaking up of Thomas Cook Germany

For three months, attempts were made to save the entire company, Thomas Cook Touristik GmbH, through a sale that was torn into the abyss by the bankruptcy of the British parent company. Ultimately, however, no investor was interested in the company as a whole; only buyers were found for individual parts.

• In November 2019, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof took over 106 of a total of 125 branch travel agencies and the “Golden Gate” e-commerce platform.
• The ANEX Tour GmbH , headquartered in Dusseldorf , a subsidiary of the Dutch holding northwest International BV , based in Amsterdam , acquired in November 2019, the tour operator business "Bucher Travel & Öger Tours GmbH". Bucher Reisen & Öger Tours GmbH was dissolved on December 10, 2019. In January 2020, Anex Tour bought the trademark rights to “Neckermann Reisen” and “various Internet domains”. The brands "Öger Tours" and "Bucher Reisen" will start again on January 15, 2020 under the umbrella of ANEX Tour GmbH.

• The RT / Raiffeisen Group Touristik GmbH, located in Altötting took over in November 2019, the travel agency franchise brand "Holiday country." In October 2019 RT / Raiffeisen Touristik Group already took over all shares in the Alpha Reisebüropartner GmbH joint venture founded in 2003 .
• In December 2019, DER Touristik took over the hotel brand "Sentido".
• In January 2020, a fund advised by the Munich holding company Dubag took over the call center operator “Gesellschaft für Reisevertriebssysteme” (GFR) with around 500 employees.

Stock exchange

Thomas Cook Group shares were traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The stock had lost 95 percent of its value in the twelve months prior to bankruptcy. On the last trading day before bankruptcy, there was a minus of 20 percent. In the course of the bankruptcy, the share was suspended from trading on the LSE. There is no majority owner. In the run-up to a possible entry in late summer 2019, the Chinese Fosun group had acquired an 18 percent stake.

See also

• Thomas Cook Group Airline
• Course book Europe
• Overseas course book

Web links

• Official website of Thomas Cook GmbH (formerly Thomas Cook AG)
• Early newspaper articles on the Thomas Cook Group in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Annual Report & Accounts 2018. (PDF; 13.9 MB) Thomas Cook Group, December 17, 2018, accessed on June 8, 2019 (English). 
2. ↑ ^{a b} www.thomascookgroup.com: Compulsory liquidation of Thomas Cook Group plc
3. ↑ Tour operator bankrupt: 140,000 German vacationers are affected . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed September 23, 2019]).
4. ^ Jörn W. Mundt: Thomas Cook. Tourism pioneer. UVK, Constance 2014
5. ↑ Case No IV / M. 1341 - WESTDEUTSCHE LANDESBANK / CARLSON / THOMAS COOK , decision of the EU competition authority of March 8, 1999, accessed on September 23, 2019 (English)
6. ^ Hans-Christoph Noack: Change of chairs: Wolfgang Beeser before returning to Neckermann-Reisen . December 11, 2013, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed December 12, 2019]).
7. ↑ | www.4investors.de. Retrieved September 23, 2019 . 
8. ↑ And increases Condor - Lufthansa sells Cook - n-tv.de . www.n-tv.de. Retrieved October 25, 2008.
9. ↑ today from February 12, 2007 ( Memento from February 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
10. ↑ Group history of Arcandor AG ( Memento from December 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
11. ↑ Financial Times Deutschland - Change of persons on the supervisory board: Eick new chairman at Thomas Cook ( memento of March 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) of March 18, 2009
12. ^ Board of Directors of Thomas Cook Group PLC. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on September 20, 2012 ; Retrieved October 18, 2010 . 
13. ↑ Change in the supervisory board and executive board of Thomas Cook AG. In: Thomas Cook company portal. March 3, 2015, accessed May 4, 2016 . 
14. ^ Reuters - Banks silver Arcandor stake in Thomas Cook from September 10, 2009
15. ↑ Tagesschau: Thomas Cook takes over Öger Tours, July 12, 2010 ( Memento from July 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
16. ↑ SWI swissinfo.ch, a branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation: Thomas Cook has entered Russia under one roof. Retrieved September 22, 2019 . 
17. ↑ aerotelegraph.com - Intourist checks its own Russian airline , accessed on May 15, 2017
18. ↑ Tour operator Thomas Cook takes over Tour Vital. August 23, 2011, accessed September 22, 2019 . 
19. ^ Euro Business Communication Verlag GmbH: News. September 19, 2019, accessed September 23, 2019 . 
20. ↑ Christoph Schlautmann: The first travel agencies are losing confidence in Thomas Cook , Handelsblatt, June 18, 2019
21. ↑ Christoph Schlautmann: Thomas Cook loses the trust of one of its banks , Handelsblatt, August 12, 2019
22. ^ ^{A b} Thomas Cook agrees terms of £ 900m rescue deal with Fosun. In: theguardian.com , August 28, 2019 (English).
23. ^ The Economist: Thomas Cook, the world's oldest travel company, collapses. Why the package-holiday firm went bust despite a booming travel market , September 23, 2019 (English, Paywall)
24. ↑ ^{a b} Thomas Cook's Last Journey . In: Effecten-Spiegel . No. 39 , 2019, p. 13 ( effecten-spiegel.com [accessed October 15, 2019]).
25. ↑ Thomas Cook hoped for a rescue from the British government. In: orf.at. September 22, 2019, accessed September 22, 2019.
26. ^ British authorities: Thomas Cook goes out of business. In: tagesschau.de. September 23, 2019, accessed September 23, 2019 . 
27. ↑ Thomas Cook files for bankruptcy. In: spiegel.de . September 23, 2019, accessed September 23, 2019.
28. ↑ Thomas Cook has ceased trading. Information for customers and travel businesses . Civil Aviation Authority, September 23, 2019
29. ↑ Code name Matterhorn: bankrupt travel company Thomas Cook brings back tens of thousands of vacationers. Retrieved September 23, 2019 . 
30. ^ Travel company Thomas Cook: British authorities are preparing a large return campaign. In: deutschlandfunk.de. September 22, 2019, accessed September 22, 2019 . 
31. ^ Thomas Cook crisis: "People will not be stranded". In: www.bbc.com. September 22, 2019, accessed on September 22, 2019 . 
32. ↑ Thomas Cook customers say they were 'held hostage' at Tunisian hotel. In: www.bbc.com. September 22, 2019, accessed on September 22, 2019 . 
33. ↑ Tourism giant Thomas Cook on the brink of collapse - the hotel holds guests like "hostages". In: focus.de. September 22, 2019, accessed September 22, 2019 . 
34. ↑ Thomas Cook files for bankruptcy , thomascook.de, September 25, 2019
35. ^ Handelsblatt: Out for Thomas Cook in Germany. Retrieved November 21, 2019 . 
36. ↑ No restructuring possible at Thomas Cook Austria orf.at, September 26, 2019, accessed September 26, 2019.
37. ↑ Thomas Cook also insolvent in the Netherlands. In: orf.at . September 30, 2019, accessed September 30, 2019 . 
38. ↑ Le Monde: Thomas Cook France annonce son placement en redressement judiciaire , October 1, 2019 (French)
39. ↑ Hosteltur: Thomas Cook Balearics, en preconcurso para salvarse de la quiebra | Transportes. Retrieved October 16, 2019 (European Spanish). 
40. ↑ The Local: 500 hotels in Spain face immediate closure after Thomas Cook collapse , September 30, 2019, accessed October 2, 2019.
41. ↑ Investors take over Thomas Cook's Northern European business . In: Reuters . October 30, 2019 ( reuters.com [accessed November 1, 2019]).
42. ↑ Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia renamed Sunclass Airlines. Accessed November 1, 2019 . 
43. ↑ tagesschau.de: Thomas Cook: Why the federal government assists vacationers. December 11, 2019, accessed December 18, 2019 . 
44. ↑ Falk Heunemann: Neckermann Reisen becomes Turkish. In: faz.net. January 2, 2020, accessed January 3, 2020 . 
45. ↑ Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof takes over Cook branches. In: touristik-aktuell.de. November 19, 2019, accessed January 3, 2020 . 
46. ↑ Anex Tour buys Öger Tours and Bucher. In: touristik-aktuell.de. November 20, 2019, accessed January 3, 2020 . 
47. ↑ LIQUIDATION. In: northdata.de. December 10, 2019, accessed January 19, 2020 . 
48. ↑ Anex Tour buys trademark rights to Neckermann. In: touristik-aktuell.de. January 3, 2020, accessed January 3, 2020 . 
49. ↑ New start for Öger Tours and Bucher Reisen. In: touristik-aktuell.de. January 15, 2020, accessed January 19, 2020 . 
50. ↑ Holiday Land goes to RTK instead of DER Touristik. In: touristik-aktuell.de. November 22, 2019, accessed January 3, 2020 . 
51. ↑ RT-Reisen takes over all alpha shares. In: touristik-aktuell.de. October 11, 2019, accessed January 3, 2020 . 
52. ↑ DER Touristik takes over the Sentido hotel brand. In: touristik-aktuell.de. December 4, 2019, accessed January 3, 2020 . 
53. ^ Cook bankruptcy: Sale of call center operator. In: touristik-aktuell.de. January 2, 2020, accessed January 3, 2020 . 
54. ↑ Thomas Cook: Investors are threatened with total loss , Börse ARD, September 23, 2019