[10][11] After the collapse, segments of the company were purchased by others, including the travel stores in the UK, the airlines, the Thomas Cook name and logo, the hotel brands and the tour operators.

[17] On 6 March 2008, the company bought back its licence to operate the Thomas Cook brand in the Middle East and Asia from the Dubai Investment Group for an amount estimated to be around 249 million euros.

[18] In April 2008 Thomas Cook bought the luxury travel firm Elegant Resorts from its founders Geoff Moss and Barbara Catchpole for an undisclosed figure.

[28] In May 2012, Harriet Green was appointed as the chief executive officer of Thomas Cook Group,[29] succeeding Manny Fontenla-Novoa, who was CEO from 2003 until August 2011.

[33] In October 2006, two young British children, Christianne and Robert Shepherd aged seven and six years old respectively, died from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty boiler while on a holiday in Corfu booked through Thomas Cook.

[35] Two Thomas Cook employees were subsequently amongst 11 defendants facing manslaughter by negligence charges at a criminal trial in Greece in 2010; both were acquitted and the company was cleared of any wrongdoing.

[36] In 2015, a UK inquest was held into the children's deaths; the jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing and concluded that the travel group had "breached its duty of care".

[37][38] After the inquest, The Mail on Sunday published a news story saying that Thomas Cook had received £3 million from the owners of the hotel where the children's deaths had occurred.

[40] In UK newspaper The Independent Joanna Bourke wrote: "Nothing Thomas Cook could ever do would bring back the two children killed by carbon monoxide poisoning on a Greek holiday in 2006.

[43][44] In August 2018, a British couple, John and Susan Cooper, aged 69 and 63 respectively, died on a Thomas Cook holiday, while staying at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.

[47] In February 2019, the Financial Times newspaper said that the Thomas Cook Group had received bids for its airline business, which included Condor, and also the company as a whole.

[48] In March 2019, Thomas Cook UK announced 21 travel office closures and the redundancy of 300 staff, justifying the decision with the fact that 64% of bookings had been made online in 2018.

[51] In June 2019, Thomas Cook said that it was in talks with the Chinese company Fosun International with regard to the possible sale of its tour operator business.

[55] Less than a week later, Thomas Cook asked HM Government to fund a £200 million gap in the company's finances to prevent the firm falling into administration.

[59] Media reports had earlier indicated that a group, including the Turkish government and a group of Spanish hoteliers backed by Spanish ministers, had offered financial support in order to assist their domestic industries, but that rescue had failed because "the British government said it was not prepared to provide any financial guarantees to underpin the funding package.

[61][62] Shortly after 02:00 BST, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced that the Thomas Cook Group had entered liquidation and ceased operations with immediate effect, leaving around 600,000 tourists overseas.

[67] David McHugh of CTV News reported that there were many factors that led to the collapse: a high debt load of £1.6 billion ($2 billion) combined with a changing travel market and online competition, events such as terrorist attacks in tourist destinations including Tunisia, the European heat wave in 2018, uncertainty caused by Brexit, and high fuel costs.

[69][70] Meanwhile, on 30 October 2019, an investment consortium consisting of Norwegian property tycoon Petter Stordalen and private equity firms Altor and TDR Capital announced that they had acquired the assets of Thomas Cook Northern Europe (also known as the Ving Group) including the Ving, Spies and Tjäreborg travel agencies, Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia, and the Sunwing and Sunprime hotel brands, with Stordalen and Altor owning 40% each and TDR Capital owning the remaining 20%.

[74] Thomas Cook Germany announced that it would close down on 1 December 2019, after having failed to find a buyer, with administrators in talks to sell Thomas Cook Germany's tour operators Öger Tours, Bucher Reisen, Neckermann and Air Marin and find buyers for hotel brands Sentido and Smartline.

[79] The German travel group DER Touristik acquired the Sentido hotel brand, with the deal subject to antitrust approval, on 4 December 2019.

[24] As of June 2016, Thomas Cook Group plc's three major shareholders were Invesco (19%), Standard Life Investments (10%), and the business magnate and investor Guo Guangchang (7.03%).