The long journey back for Cox & Kings

The world’s oldest travel company has found the going hard over the last decade. Having survived 260 years, will the digital era prove a bridge too far for Cox & Kings?

Founded in 1768, Cox & Kings has survived two world wars and almost all of the modern era's financial collapses

Having grown strongly between 2000-2008, the company decided to go public in 2009

While it had a stellar listing, the company has not been able to live up to its legacy since

Instead, it has found itself debt-ridden, asset-heavy, and out of step in the fast-evolving travel space

Update: In an earlier version of the story, the fall in Cox & Kings’ stock was not adjusted as per the company’s stock split in 2011. This has been corrected. We regret the error.

Having survived 260 years, Cox & Kings is the world’s oldest travel company. It pre-dates the formation of the United States of America, has survived two world wars, and almost all the global economic meltdowns in the history of modern civilisation. It has even migrated continents, moving from its birthplace of England to its current home in India.

AUTHOR

Sidhartha Shukla

In his earlier stint at Moneycontrol, the website owned by the Network18 group, Sid wrote on cryptocurrencies, cybersecurity, business, and finance. Born in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, Sid has spent most of his life in Jalandhar, Punjab. He has a BSc in Mathematics from St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Sid is a comic book nerd and a big fan of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Brian Azzarello. He can be reached at sidhartha at the rate the-ken.com

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