New York firm pays $20M for majority stake in Louisville-based Natural Habitat

LOUISVILLE — Fitness and lifestyle company Gaiam Inc. (Nasdaq: GAIA) has sold its majority stake in Louisville-based adventure travel and ecotourism company Natural Habitat Inc., a move that the latter’s founder hopes will help the company vastly increase its customer reach.

New York-based Lindblad Expedition Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: LIND), another ecotourism company focused on ship-based voyages, paid about $20 million for an 80.1 percent stake in Natural Habitat. Louisville-based Gaiam had owned 51 percent of Natural Habitat since 2000. Founder and owner Ben Bressler also sold a significant chunk of his stake to Lindblad in the most recent deal but retains a 19.9 percent interest of Natural Habitat and will stay onboard as president.

Bressler said Thursday that Natural Habitat — which employs about 60 people in all, including 50 in Louisville — said the company will keep its branding and continue to operate as a standalone company. He also expects to add about 10 more employees in sales and operations over the next 12 to 18 months.

The relationship between Lindblad and Natural Habitat figures to be a complementary one, Bressler said. That’s because Natural Habitat’s trips are mostly land-based, while Lindblad’s are exclusively ship-based and are expected to stay that way. While both have sold each other’s trips — as well as those of other similar companies — in the past, Lindblad will now steer its customers interested in land-based trips exclusively toward Natural Habitat and vice-versa.

“The Gaiam partnership has been great,” Bressler said. “But Lindblad’s partnership is a much more symbiotic relationship.”

Bressler started Natural Habitat in 1985 with “600 bucks saved driving a garbage truck at an amusement park in New Jersey.” The company’s first trip took travelers on a baby seal-watching excursion in Canada to try and create an alternative economy to seal hunting that would incentivize local protection of the animals.

That same type of motivation is what continues to drive most of the company’s trips today, which include everything from viewing grizzly bears in Alaska to rainforest tours.

Bressler moved Natural Habitat from New Jersey to Colorado in 1994. He credits the move with spurring a rapid period of growth for the company due largely, he believes, to the fact that an ecotourism company based in Boulder County carries a little more marketing sway than one based in New Jersey.

Natural Habitat had 2015 revenue of about $41 million, reeling in net income of $1.5 million.

Those numbers figure to grow with the new partnership, though Bressler said he doesn’t plan on adding too many new destinations.

“We’re really committed not to add too much product but to grow each individual product that we have,” Bressler said.

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