Trivago Planning $428 Million IPO to Help Fund Even More TV Ads
Skift Take
When you think of all the online travel companies constrained by a lack of marketing resources wipe Trivago out of your mind. The Germany-based hotel metasearch site spends a whopping 88 percent of its revenue on advertising. And, if it can pull off a successful initial public offering then Trivago will resupply its advertising war chest. The metasearch rich are getting richer.
Trivago began its roadshow and currently plans to raise $428 million in an initial public offering that would tentatively take place around December 15, Skift has learned.
The offering, according to Trivago documents released in connection with its roadshow, would be priced from $13 to $15 per share and would value the company, which would still be controlled by Expedia Inc., at around $5 billion -- that's a tad lower than TripAdvisor's current $6.9 billion market cap. Those prospective share prices are, of course, subject to change depending on demand for the offering.
Fewer Choices at Expedia, Kayak and Google, trivago says
Trivago states that its mission is: "To be the traveler's first and independent source of information for ding the ideal hotel at the lowest rate."
The problem with the "independence" argument is that while Trivago operates mostly independently, it is controlled by Expedia Inc. and would still be controlled by Expedia after the IPO.
And two online travel agencies -- rivals of one another -- accounted for 78 percent of Trivago's revenue in the fi
