Hays Travel to buy Thomas Cook's UK stores: Government agency

Britain's insolvency agency said on Wednesday that Hays Travel had reached an agreement with Thomas Cook Group Plc to buy 555 stores of the collapsed travel firm in the UK.

The travel agency will also re-employ some former employees from Thomas Cook's retail operations, the British agency said in a statement.

The world's largest travel firm, Thomas Cook, collapsed last month, stranding hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers around the globe and sparking the largest peacetime repatriation effort in British history.