Uriel Aviation Holdings

Uriel Aviation is a diversified travel investment group based in Hong Kong and the owner of:

• HKExpress – Hong Kong’s only low cost carrier (LCC) flying all over Asia
• Reward-U – fast growing travel loyalty scheme
• Zuji – longstanding on-line travel agent operating in Hong Kong and Singapore
• U-Fly Alliance Services – support services company to the U-Fly Alliance, the world’s first LCC alliance
• U-Fly Holidays – holiday company established to provide holidays to U-Fly Alliance travelers
• U-Explore – marketing and selling things to do and activities to travelers
• U-Tech – travel technology incubator

Project background

The massive growth in China outbound travel continues to be one of the major themes and opportunities for the entire travel industry. The challenge for the Hong Kong based shareholders and leadership team of HKExpress was how best to participate in this growth, when expansion of HKExpress is seriously limited due to local infrastructure constraints.

The strategy developed and implemented by various Mango people was to set up Uriel Aviation Holdings to incubate and invest in a portfolio of business covering different segments of the travel market.

Expertise provided

• Strategy development and establishment of investment group legal and management structure.
• Acquisition of Zuji Hong Kong and Zuji Singapore from WebJet of Australia. Included deal negotiations, completion, due diligence and financing, recruitment of expertise from leading international OTA’s, launch of a restructuring plan to address long-standing profitability and business performance issues.
• Incubation and build of reward-U, U-Fly Holidays and U-Tech into standalone companies.
• Launch and build of the world’s first LCC alliance, U-Fly Alliance. Compromising EastarJet (South Korea), HKExpress (Hong Kong), Lucky Air (China), Urumqi Air (China) and West Air (China).
• Development, launch and build of a group branding structure and brand-name centred on “U the customer”.
• Identification and negotiation with a variety of third parties inward investors to participate and help grow businesses being developed by Uriel.
• Identification, evaluation and analysis of a large portfolio of early stage, unique travel proposition investment targets for Uriel.
• Design and build of technology and security infrastructure for an international, geographically diversified travel investment group.
• Sourcing of top calibre external travel professionals to manage and grow the Uriel portfolio of businesses.

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