Lastminute.com pays £40m for reality TV 'car wreck'

Martha and Brent go into business with a "thick, greedy, loathsome man"...

UK online travel site lastminute.com has bought car rental firm Holiday Autos for £40m. Holiday Autos - the subject of a particularly unflattering reality TV show last year - adds another dimension to the travel offering of lastminute.com, which built its reputation upon being able to offer discount flights and hotel rooms to the last-minute traveller. The deal will be financed through the exchange of 27 million shares and £16m in cash. The deal sits particularly well within lastminute.com's Break Builder offering, which enables site users to create their own holiday package. Pending approval of the deal, Clive Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Holiday Autos, will be appointed to the board of lastminute.com. Viewers of BBC2's The Secret Life of the Office may remember Jacobs coming across in a less than favourable light. The Guardian described him as "the most loathsome man to have appeared on television this year," adding that he is "boastful, thick, greedy, nasty, cheap", before concluding that "those would appear to be his selling-points".