CRUISE PLANNERS EXECS BUY COMPANY

Big news coming from Cruise Planners - American Express Travel, who Tuesday announced that "CEO Michelle Fee, CFO Tom Kruszewski and Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing Vicky Garcia together purchased the company from Palm Beach Capital, a private equity investment firm that had been the majority owner of Cruise Planners since 2005. The transaction price for the deal, which closed on Dec. 31, was not disclosed."

The release also included these details:


"Cruise Planners was created by Fee along with industry veterans Lynn Korn and Marvin Davis in 1994. Just prior to the retirement of Korn and Davis in 2007, their shares in the company were purchased by Palm Beach Capital. Fee continued to grow the business, signing on Garcia in 2004 and Kruszewski in 2008 to round out the executive team. Under their management, Cruise Planners has earned top sales awards from all of the major cruise lines and increased the number of franchisees to more than 800 with an impressive growth in 2012.

"Under the new ownership, Fee will remain CEO and Kruszewski as CFO. Garcia will take on the new title of COO, overseeing the overall strategic and operational responsibility for all business development and marketing programs including the formation of third party partnerships that have become an extension of the company’s in-house offerings for agents."

Congrats to the Michelle, Vicky, Tom and the whole team! -- Gerry and Pam