Freedom Holding to acquire Aviata and Chocotravel

Freedom Holding is going to buy a 100% share in Aviata and Chokotravel, ticket services within Chokofamily Holding. The $32.3 million deal is expected to be closed by the end of 2023, Freedom Holding said in a statement.

According to Timur Turlov, CEO of the company, Freedom Holding’s goal is to create a full-scale ecosystem of digital services for clients. This is why «the acquiring of Aviata and Chokotravel is the next step in the development of the entire group.» More than one million of the most economically active Kazakhstanis can be considered constant users of the two online services, so they are now going to be clients of Freedom. The country’s travel industry has been growing for the past several years. Last year, for example, Kazakhstani airlines hit record-high passenger traffic of 11 million people, which is 17% higher than in 2021 and twice as much as in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic came to the region.

«We are going to build effective communications with the services’ current clients and build synergy by attracting new customers for the Freedom Bank’s platform and integrating Aviata and Chocotravel with our payment system and insurance products,» Turlov highlighted.

Both Aviata.kz and Chocotravel.com are the most sophisticated ticket services within the CIS, according to Amadeus, an IT provider for the global travel and tourism industry. For example, automated ticket refund transactions account for 76% of all such transactions. And they are instant.

Nikolay Mazentsev, CEO of Chocofamily Holding, said that the company revised its strategy last year. They want to focus on projects linked with delivery services and advertising solutions for businesses. The holding has already sold its online shop Lensmark.kz and ioka.kz, a payment system.

«Once the deal with selling Aviata.kz and Chocotravel is closed, we will have enough resources to pay off 100% of our private and public debts to focus on projects that have strategic value for us. We are proud of these two services. This is the best travel product in the market. By using it, you can find the best price for air tickets you won’t find in other agencies,» Mezentsev said.

Aviata.kz and Chocotravel.com are very well-known brands in the tourism market in Kazakhstan. According to a Fusion Lab survey by the GFK representative office in Kazakhstan, for 24.7% of Kazakhstani customers, these two companies are top of mind. About 96% of users have given five stars to these services, according to EUSAT. Moreover, both services have also had b2b products and actively cooperate with more than 1,200 big companies across the country.

Chocofamily is one of the biggest IT companies in Kazakhstan with a revenue of $256.9 million. Last year, the holding combined all its services in one app named Choco. By now, there are seven services in the holding portfolio: Chocofood.kz, Choco Ryadom, Choco Delivery, Chocolife.me, Choco Loyalty and Digital Restaurant, and iDoctor.kz.

Aviata.kz is a Kazakhstani ticket service for booking and buying air and railway tickets. The company was established in 2013. In 2018, the online service was combined with Chocotravel.com. In 2019, Chocofamily Holding acquired a 100% share in the combined Aviata and Chocotravel company.

In 2017, Timur Turlov bought a 16.76% stake in Chocofamily Holding. In 2019, his share increased to 18%. At the time, Turlov underlined that both deals were done apart from the holding.

Freedom Holding is a financial company that provides a wide range of services like brokerage, investment consulting, trading with securities, investment and banking services and underwriting. The holding runs representative offices in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the U.K., Greece, Spain, France, Germany, the UAE, Turkey, Cyprus and the U.S.