Poland's Wirtualna Polska Holding has signed a framework agreement to acquire 100% of the shares in travel agency Invia Group for a total value of 240 milion euros.

Invia Group operates one of the most visited online travel booking platforms in Central Europe and last year its services were used by more than 2 million customers, generating revenues of 183 million euros and profits of 37 million euros. WP Holding sends more than one million Polish customers on holiday each year via the Wakacje.pl platform and hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers from the Czech Republic (Hotel.cz), Hungary and Romania via the Szallas Group.

The acquisition will significantly strengthen WP Holding in the Czech market, but the main objective is to enter the German-speaking market, which with a turnover of 120 billion euros represents 20% of the pan-European market. The transaction is subject to the approval of the Polish competition authorities and the Chinese authorities on the sale of foreign assets of state-owned enterprises.