Sabre Corp. is buying Abacus International, a global distribution system in the Asia-Pacific region.

Sabre Corp. is buying Abacus International, a global distribution system in the Asia-Pacific region. Abacus is currently owned by a consortium of 11 Asian airlines along with Sabre, which has a 35 percent stake in the company. Sabre will purchase the remaining portion of Abacus for net cash consideration of $411 million.

"The Asia-Pacific travel market is the largest and fastest growing in the world," said Tom Klein, Sabre president and ceo. "Acquiring Abacus immediately combines the global capabilities of Sabre with the deep local market expertise of the leading Asia-Pacific GDS. This powerful combination will give customers even more innovation and service options, while allowing Sabre to accelerate growth globally in a very capital efficient way – and to gain regional synergies in all three of our businesses serving travel agents, airlines and hospitality companies."

Abacus serves more than 100,000 travel agents across the Asia-Pacific region's 59 markets and has both global and local relationships with airlines and hotels, including the leading portfolio of low-cost content and Chinese airline content.

Separately, the acquisition includes new long-term distribution agreements between Sabre and the 11 airline owners of Abacus.

Abacus will operate as a region of Sabre Travel Network, and Sabre expects its expanded Asia-Pacific direct presence will benefit Sabre Airline Solutions and Sabre Hospitality Solutions, which already provide mission-critical support to 78 airlines and thousands of hotels throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Sabre also will continue its partnership to provide technology services to INFINI, a local Japanese GDS.