Gurassa checks out of Thomson to go plural

Charles Gurassa, the head of Thomson Travel who sold the UK Tour operator to Germany's TUI in 2000, yesterday revealed plans to part company from the European travel giant to embark on a "plural career".

Mr Gurassa said he planned to spend the summer with his family before beefing up his non-executive portfolio and taking on a number of venture-capitalist consultancy roles.

The 46-year-old, who sparked a bidding war for Thomson Travel Group only months after joining the then troubled British Travel Group, said: "For the first time in 25 years I'll have more than two weeks off with my children." He intends to spend the summer at his Tuscan villa in Italy.

Travel industry observers speculated that Mr Gurassa, who is already a non-executive director at Whitbread, could be preparing to mount a private equity backed bid for MyTravel.

Thomson's arch rival, still better known as Airtours, is on the verge of a re-financing after a string of profit warnings and the discovery of an accounting black hole brought it close to financial collapse last year.

Asked whether he was looking at MyTravel, Mr Gurassa said: "I couldn't possibly comment but that's certainly not something I am planning at the moment."

Mr Gurassa who made £3.5m from TUI's £1.8bn takeover of Thomson, denied his departure had anything to do with a thaw in Anglo-German relations: "They [TUI] couldn't have been nicer. They were very thoughtful and treated us as a partner from day one."

Mr Gurassa, who will step down on 1 June, was chairman of TUI Northern Europe. He sat on the board of the German company, which changed its name from Preussag last year, and was also responsible for the group's airlines and its marketing strategy.

Mr Gurassa sparked a summer of German beach towel-related headlines after inciting a takeover battle between the then Preussag and its smaller rival C&N for control of Britain's second-biggest package holiday company.

Yesterday he said his work at TUI, which reports results today, was "now completed" following Thomson's successful integration into the German company.

Drawing on his experience at British Airways, where he helped to launch Go as a rival to easyJet, Mr Gurassa also oversaw the creation last year of the German low-cost carrier Hapag-Lloyd Express.

Mr Gurassa said he had "one or two plans", which he would reveal in the autumn. He played down suggestions that he might seek to step into the shoes of David Thomas at Whitbread, who plans to retire as chief executive next year, saying: "My preference at this stage is for a portfolio career."

This will also include some pro-bono work for the charity Whizz-Kidz, he added.

Peter Rothwell, the chief executive of TUI Northern Europe, which owns Lunn Poly as well as Thomson Travel, will succeed Mr Gurassa on the parent's executive board.