Liberty Interactive chairman rejoins Expedia board less than a month after his resignation

John Malone, the billionaire chairman of Liberty Interactive Corp., rejoined the board of online travel company Expedia Inc. less than a month after resigning as a director.

Malone was elected to replace William Fitzgerald, who resigned, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Liberty, which is an Expedia shareholder, has the right to nominate two directors to the board based on an agreement signed a year ago.

Malone previously served as an Expedia board member from August 2005 until Nov. 29, 2012. The following day, Expedia released a filing, saying that Pamela Coe, a Liberty executive, was replacing Malone as a director after his resignation. Earlier this month, Liberty bought about $300 million of stock in TripAdvisor Inc., gaining voting control of the travel review site that was spun out of Expedia.

Expedia fell 2.2 percent to $59.59 at the close in New York today. The stock has more than doubled this year.

Representatives from Bellevue, Washington-based Expedia and Englewood, Colorado-based Liberty didn’t return calls for comment.

Editors: Reed Stevenson and Stephen West.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net.