Serko, mulling listing, names Simon Botherway as chair

Serko, mulling listing, names Simon Botherway as chair, taps 2 other independent directors

May 5 (BusinessDesk) – Serko, the online business travel booking company that has considered going public with an NZX listing, named Simon Botherway as chairman and tapped two other independent directors.

Botherway is a former fund manager and headed the Financial Markets Establishment Board, which advised the government on setting up the Financial Markets Authority. He will join Icehouse New Zealand board member Claudia Batten and Clyde McConaghy, a director of ASX-listed Infomedia, Auckland-based Serko said in a statement.

In May last year Serko founders Bob Shaw and Darrin Grafton said they may sell 25 percent of the company in an initial public offering, aiming to raise $20 million, though as yet no sale has been announced. The company doesn’t currently have an update on a possible sale, a spokeswoman said today.

Shaw and Grafton started a company called Interactive Technologies in 1994 and created its main Serko Online product in 2000, according to its website.

This later became part of Gulliver’s Travel Group, which listed on the ASX and NZX before being acquired by Australia’s S8 in 2006, which was then swallowed up by MFS. Shaw and Grafton then purchased the Serko assets from MFS in 2007, according to a timeline on the website.

Serko has offices in Auckland, Sydney, China’s Xi’an City and Gurgaon, India and employs more than 90 people, its statement said. It is part of the Mundi Global Alliance, made up of three corporate travel service companies.

(BusinessDesk)

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