A Priceline Acquisition of TripAdvisor Makes Sense in a Year of Transition
Skift Take
While Expedia has been on a growth spurt given all of its acquisitions over the past year, Priceline has been saying that its "competitive moat" is wide but under-appreciated. A Priceline acquisition of TripAdvisor would make a bold statement and widen that competitive moat for all to see.
The Priceline Group, locked in its global battle with Expedia and others, is known to have been interested in acquiring TripAdvisor for some time.
But is now the time to pull the trigger?
TripAdvisor chairman Greg Maffei, whose Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings controls 54 percent of the voting power at TripAdvisor, may have opened the door to speculation about either TripAdvisor buying down Liberty's stake or a suitor coming in to make an offer during his comments at a Morgan Stanley investor conference early this month.
Asked at that March 1 event about the future of Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings' ownership of TripAdvisor, Maffei said "the most obvious catalyst" for change is if another company "walked in one day and put a number on the table for TRIP, which is not for sale. But if somebody put a number for TRIP on then you are dividing the spoils and it is a lot easier discussion than if you sitting around on the average day running the company."
TripAdvisor's stock got a boost two weeks later as rumors swirled about a possible merger or acquisition, with Priceline cited as a possible buyer. It's unclear if Maffei's comments had anything to do with the rumors.
But at a Bank of America Merrill Lynch investor conference March 15, a day after the market-moving rumors, Priceline CFO Daniel Finnegan addressed the merger and acquisitions issue, noting that M&A has "been a critical part of our past
