Leger Holidays, the escorted touring company, has announced the acquisition of the assets of former competitor, Shearings. The deal will see Leger Holidays acquire the Shearings brand, website and customer database.

The demise of Shearings, after more than one hundred years trading, when parent company Specialist Leisure Group went into administration on 22 May, was received with much sadness by the travel industry and Shearings’ customers. Leger Holidays and Shearings formerly competed head to head in the escorted coach tours arena, with Leger’s focus on European tours while Shearings was best known for UK coach tours. Both companies concentrated their marketing efforts on the 60 years plus, silver market demographic.

Leger Holidays’ chief executive Ian Henry said: “We will be bringing the iconic Shearings brand back to life and relaunching it as a stand-alone brand in our escorted tours portfolio. We have gone into this deal knowing that the two brands already have many synergies – similar product, customer demographic, experience values, impressive repeat business and customer loyalty and, as such, we already have the business model in place to seamlessly relaunch it.”

This deal will not only save the Shearings brand but will reinforce Leger Holidays’ position as the UK’s largest coach holiday operator.