Flight Centre Travel Group Invests in 3Mundi – FCM partner in France and Switzerland

Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) has further strengthened its corporate travel footprint in Europe.

The Australian-headquartered company, which recently acquired corporate businesses in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway and Sweden, today announced an agreement to invest in a 25% share of business travel and technology agency, 3mundi, which has operations in France, Switzerland and Spain.

In 2015, 3mundi became the licensee partner in France and Switzerland for FCTG’s flagship global corporate travel division, FCM Travel Solutions, and has traded under the FCM brand since 2016.

3mundi was established in 2006 by Jordy Staelen and Simon Renaud as a progressive agency combining high-performing technology and human talent to optimise business travel services. 3mundi has grown rapidly achieving annual growth per annum of 37.8 percent between 2012 and 2016. The company employs 115 staff at its offices in Paris, Geneva and Barcelona and currently ranks as one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies in the FT 1000.

Since becoming FCM’s partner in France, 3mundi has won significant new clients including PriceWaterhouseCoopers, international engineering specialist Fives Group and most recently CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research). The latter has an annual business travel spend of €35M. In addition to its corporate travel businesses in France and Switzerland, 3mundi operates a business travel lab in Barcelona, which is successfully developing proprietary technology and tools for the travel industry.

“FCM and 3mundi have enjoyed an excellent partnership since 2015 and we are delighted to be forging an even stronger bond with our partner in France and Switzerland by way of this investment,” said Steve Norris, Corporate Managing Director - EMEA, Flight Centre Travel Group. “France and Switzerland are important corporate travel hubs for our existing customers and for new multi-national accounts that we are targeting globally. This investment will strengthen FCM’s foothold in these markets, and supports our strategy of expanding our equity-owned presence in Europe, which already includes the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark.”

Jordy Staelen, Managing Director, 3Mundi comments: “We are looking forward to an even closer cooperation with FCM and Flight Centre Travel Group. This investment is very good news for our customers and employees. It gives us the opportunity to expand and benefit from FCM’s global strength, products, services and technology.”

FCTG’s investment in 3mundi is the latest in a number of technology and e-commerce enhancements announced recently. Last month, FLT announced that it had acquired a 24.1% interest in Bibam, an Argentina-based travel and technology group with a strong presence in the on and offline leisure, corporate and wholesale sectors. Bibam (Biblos América), Argentina's second largest travel group, owns and operates the Biblos brand and fast growing e-commerce player Avantrip.com. The deal will give FLT enhanced digital commerce capabilities through access to Bibam’s scalable e-commerce platforms and software development teams.