Acquisition of BRC

Holidaybreak PLC
22 December 2004





                                HOLIDAYBREAK PLC

                      Acquisition of BRC for €33.5m (£23.1m)


Holidaybreak, the UK's leading operator of specialist holiday businesses, today
announces that it has acquired the privately owned Dutch short breaks company
Business Reservation Centre Holland Holding BV (BRC), for €33.5m (£23.1m).

BRC is the market leading on-line intermediary for short-stay leisure hotel
breaks in the Netherlands.

In calendar year 2003, BRC had revenues of €6.95m (£4.8m) on total transaction
value (TTV) of €31.3m (£21.6m) and achieved a normalised EBIT of €2.07m (£1.4m).
Anticipated 2004 revenues are €8.76m (£6.0m) (TTV: €43.0m (£29.7m)), with
normalised EBIT of €3.4m (£2.3m). Net assets of BRC as at 31 December 2003 were
€1.8m (£1.2m).

The consideration will be paid in cash, using Holidaybreak's existing bank
facilities. The transaction is expected to be earnings enhancing for
Holidaybreak in the current financial year (see Note 1).

BRC's www.weekendjeweg.nl site, is the third most visited travel website in the
Netherlands and a widely recognised consumer brand. The site, along with its
sister sites, www.nachtjeweg.nl and www.bungalows.nl, has taken 350,000 bookings
(800,000 passengers) in 2004 and this number is growing rapidly.

BRC's on-line database comprises 850,000 e-mail addresses and repeat business
exceeds 50%. The company works with over 900 accommodation suppliers, mainly in
the Netherlands and Belgium. The experienced and able management team will
remain with the business and have entered into appropriate service contracts.

Richard Atkinson, Chief Executive of Holidaybreak, said; 'BRC is an excellent
addition to the Holidaybreak Group. It is the market-leading, on-line leisure
breaks intermediary in the Netherlands and has both an impressive track record
and exciting growth prospects. It has a similar business model to our very
successful UK Hotel Breaks business and gives us additional exposure to this
rapidly growing sector of the holiday market. Our immediate aims will be to
build on the momentum established within the business and to develop the sale of
current products via the BRC websites and database. We will also investigate
opportunities to expand into other European territories.

This acquisition demonstrates that the Group has the financial strength to
exploit changing market trends by investing in growing sectors and widening our
portfolio of brands whilst continuing to deliver attractive margins and
significant cash.'

Robert De Boeck, Managing Director of Antea Participaties, a Dutch-based
private equity-firm and one of the selling shareholders of BRC said: 'We
congratulate Holidaybreak with this acquisition. BRC is one of the most
successful on-line companies in the leisure industry in the Netherlands.
Since the investment made by Antea in 2000, the Company has produced
strong growth both in revenues and profitability thanks to an excellent
management team. We see a bright future for BRC within the
Holidaybreak Group.'





Enquiries:

Richard Atkinson / Robert Baddeley Holidaybreak              [phone]
Craig Breheny Brunswick                                      [phone]




Note to Editors

Holidaybreak (HBR.L) is listed on the London stock market. The UK's leading
operator of specialist holiday businesses, it sold 2.3m holidays sold in the 12
months to end-September. Each is a market leader in its respective specialist
sector of the holiday industry, has multi-channel distribution and is recognised
for providing high standards of product and service quality.

For more information, please go to www.holidaybreak.co.uk.


Note 1
This statement should not be taken to mean that the earnings per share of
Holidaybreak plc will necessarily match or exceed the historic reported earnings
per share of Holidaybreak plc and no forecast is intended or implied.




                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange