Western & Oriental plc is the parent company of a specialist luxury travel group which acts as both a tour operator and travel agent through a number of high quality brands, offering specialist holiday programmes for both tailor made and packaged holidays.

KD.

Announces that it has appointed Steven John Hall to the Board as Group Finance Director with effect from Apr. 24, 2006. He joins Western & Oriental having previously been with easyGroup where he was Chief Financial Officer, acting as Finance Director to a number of the easy-branded businesses, and more recently acting as a consultant to Charter plc.

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Announces the acquisition of Travel Management Team, which operates a Conference and Incentive travel business based in Yorkshire, for an initial consideration of 270,000, which will be satisfied in the issue of 551,020 shares in Western & Oriental plc and 135,000 in cash. A further cash payment of 62,539 will be made for the net assets of the business. Deferred consideration of up to 250,000 will be payable depending on performance for the period ending Jun. 30 2007. Travel Management Team was profitable in the year to Jun. 30, 2005. "It will complement the Conference and Incentive business operated by Lynton Cooper, acquired in March 2006, and increases the overall scale and reach of the Group," Western & Oriental said. Application will be made to the London Stock Exchange for the new shares to be admitted to trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. It is expected that trading in the new shares will become effective from 8.00am on 28 April 2006.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/05/21/cxequity21.xml

Western & Oriental (20p) floated on Aim in March and is still tiny, but the luxury travel group looks set to grow fast.

It was founded by Peter Howell, who oversaw a score of acquisitions during his time as finance director of Lastminute.com.

But while Lastminute deals with the mass market, W&O was started with the aim of consolidating the highly fragmented luxury and specialist holiday market, which is the fastest growing travel sector.

The company acts as both agent and tour operator and already has a number of brands of its own, including W&O Travel and Regent Holidays.

Last month it strengthened its board with the appointment of Steven Hall as finance director. Hall joined from easyJet, where he held the same position.

W&O looks like an interesting growth story. Buy.

KD.

Like the look of this and the trading statement indicates that things are looking far better this year.