Expedia Acquires HomeAway for $3.9 Billion
Skift Take
With more than one million paid listings in more than 190 countries, Expedia's pending acquisition of HomeAway is a game-changer in that it saves Expedia years of building up its own vacation rental supply in an increasingly important lodging sector.
Here we go: After years of speculation about whether it would be Expedia, TripAdvisor, the Priceline Group, or Google to purchase HomeAway, Expedia Inc. agreed to acquire the vacation rental giant for $3.9 billion in cash and stock.
The companies believe the transaction would close, after regulatory approvals, in the first quarter of 2016.
The Expedia-HomeAway combination would displace Booking.com as the world's largest lodging seller in terms of numbers of hotels, vacation rentals and apartments etc. Expedia Inc. would offer at least 1.3 million properties -- although Expedia and HomeAway officials spoke of 1.5 million -- compared with Booking.com's 821,400.
Expedia Inc., which has over th
