Sabre Corp. has filed its paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering. Sabre is owned by private equity and is a key software and services technology solutions provider to the global travel agent and tourism industry. It was announced back at the end of 2006 that Sabre would be acquired by private equity affiliates of TPG and Silver Lake for roughly $5 billion.

Now the go-private deal is coming full circle. We would point out that no exchange was chosen, nor was any pricing information given. The filing, which may easily change in size, is for up to $100 million in common stock. It would seem that the $100 million will grow if the buyout from seven years ago was for close to $5 billion in total.

The initial underwriting group is listed as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank.

Sabre distributes travel content from approximately 125,000 travel suppliers to approximately 400,000 online and offline travel agents. Private equity backers TPG, Silver Lake and a management group called Sovereign Co-Invest are the owners. They own 45.3%, 27.9% and 23.4%, respectively.

Financial details are as follows:

• For the nine months ended September 30, 2013, revenue was $2.3 billion, gross margin was $1.1 billion, net loss attributable to Sabre was $127 million and adjusted EBITDA was $577 million.
• For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2012, revenue was $3.0 billion, gross margin was $1.4 billion, net loss attributable to Sabre Corporation was $611 million and adjusted EBITDA was $785 million.

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