The Globe and Mail is reporting that the federal government will announce the approval of WestJet's acquisition of Sunwing Vacations and Sunwing Airlines today.
The newspaper cited unnamed sources in its report. It is expected that conditions will be attached to the approval of a deal first announced a year ago.
The Competition Bureau issued a report on the planned acquisition in October 2022, expressing concerns that the combination of the two companies would result in "a substantial lessening" of competition in the sale of vacation packages to Canadians.
From a business perspective, the deal makes sense for the two companies, with Sunwing seen as a stronger tour operator than WestJet's vacations division, and WestJet bringing a much larger and more diverse fleet of aircraft.
Sunwing Travel Group has also become a strong Mexico and Caribbean hotel operator in recent years, although its Blue Diamond Resorts is not part of the proposed deal.
Sunwing, privately owned by the Hunter family and TUI, has been under siege in recent months after much-publicized weather- and labour-related disruptions during the holiday season. WestJet is owned by Onex Corp.
The two companies previously stated that if the acquisition was approved, the two brands would continue to be marketed separately, with the tour operator part of the business based in Toronto, while WestJet would run Sunwing Airlines from its base in Calgary.
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