Buying TripAdvisor: Would Antitrust Issues Kill a Priceline or Google Acquisition?
Photo Caption: Online travel insiders and analysts have spent the last year speculating about what company would move to acquire TripAdvisor. Whichever the company, the timing is ideal right now.
Skift Take
While one U.S. administration is getting ready to pack up things in the White House and Trump or Clinton hope to redecorate the place on their own, it could be an opportune time to sneak a Priceline-TripAdvisor or Google-TripAdvisor marriage past those sometimes-pesky antitrust regulators.
Over the last few months there has been sporadic speculation and conjecture that the Priceline Group, which has been uncharacteristically quiet on the mergers and acquisitions front, or even Google could pull the trigger and buy TripAdvisor, especially as the review and booking site's stock closed yesterday under $69 per share, or about 27 percent lower than its 52-week high.
What some would view as this relatively cheap price for TripAdvisor could change dramatically -- one way or the other -- when the company reports second quarter earnings on August 4 and provides further details on whether its grand project, TripAdvisor Instant Booking, which finds consumers booking hotels on TripAdvisor, is working out as planned. Specifically, TripAdvisor seeks to reverse a recent decline in revenue per hotel shopper on its sites as it transitions from a reliance on advertising clicks to a tilt toward hotel commissions with some hotel-metasearch and clicks on the side.
But could a TripAdvi
