thetrainline.com departs

Following on from my earlier post I note that thetrainline.com has now been sold to Exponent, a private equity company, for some £163m. That’s not too bad at all for a website business that managed to survive the .com crash.

It’s obviously a popular website…in the year to March 2006 some £400m worth of tickets were sold through the site, earning revenues in excess of £47m. The company is more than just the one site though – 16 sites are also managed for UK train operators.

Mr Branson will be pleased!