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Mondee, a booking platform for travel agents, on Tuesday filed for bankruptcy with plans to restructure the company and sell its assets.
After the Chapter 11 filing, Mondee said on Wednesday that it plans to sell its assets to affiliates of TCW Asset Management and Wingspire Capital, and form a new entity, pending legal approval.
The company was delisted from Nasdaq on December 6 for failure to file an earnings report for the third quarter of 2024. The company in late November said that it would not appeal the delisting and that its CEO, Prasad Gundumogula, would be taking a leave of absence while remaining as board chair. Jesus Portillo, Mondee’s CFO, was appointed as CEO.
The plan is that Gundumogula would own 75% of the new company and return as CEO.
The Texas-based company says business will continue as usual during the process, and that court proceedings do not impact the company’s entities in Brazil, Mexico, India and Canada. Mondee has 116 employees and 60 independent contractors, according to court filings.
Mondee had total consolidated debts of $358.7 million as of June 30, 2024, according to court filings. The filing lists $362.8 million in assets.
The company’s existing lenders are providing $49 million to support the company through court proceedings.
The firm Kroll Restructuring Administration is working with the company on the proceedings. Mohsin Meghji of M3 Partners was named as chief restructuring officer, according to filings.
The company plans to finish the bankruptcy proceedings by the beginning of the second quarter of this year.
Jim Dullum resigned as COO on January 10, according to a filing with the SEC.
Mondee’s History
Mondee went public in July 2022 via a SPAC merger, with a market capitalization of approximately $740 million. The stock debuted at $11.05 per share. In late November, it was trading below $1.
Mondee began as a rollup company but has spent the past couple of years working to turn its tech into a unified platform for travel agents.
In July 2023, Mondee released an upgraded version of its travel booking platform, which is integrated with generative AI and includes a chatbot called Abhi.
Mondee was founded in 2011 and acquired seven travel tech companies in the next year, focused solely on selling flights wholesale to travel agents. Mondee invested nearly $200 million between 2012 and 2015 to create a software platform for this segment of the market.
When the pandemic hit, the company started making more acquisitions. Mondee has completed 19 acquisitions to date, including five in 2023. The company cut roughly 15 jobs from its marketing team late last year, including its chief marketing officer. Orestes Fintiklis, vice chairman for Mondee, told Skift that they were “being replaced by AI and some outsourced external services in India.”
