Northstar Travel Group Acquired By Wasserstein Partners
by Cheryl Rosen /Northstar Travel Group, parent of Travel Weekly and TravelAge West, has been acquired by a group of investors headed by Wasserstein Partners, an independent, New York-based private-equity investor. Co-investors include the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund Board, John Hancock, and Storebrand Insurance.
Details of the transaction were not released.
Northstar is the owner of nine travel-industry publications—Travel Weekly, TravelAge West, Business Travel News, Successful Meetings, Meetings & Conventions, Travel Weekly China, Incentive, M&C China, and Web in Travel—as well as research firm Phocuswright, and is the majority shareholder in Inntopia, an e-commerce software provider.
The Wicks Group acquired Northstar in 2012. Private equity firms generally hold acquisitions for three to seven years.