Tripadvisor Faces Shakeup as Activist Investor Starboard Seeks Control
Photo Credit: Tripadvisor CEO Matt Goldberg at the Skift Global Forum, September 19, 2024. Skift
Skift Take
Starboard Value will likely find plenty of support among Tripadvisor's long-suffering shareholders.
Starboard Value, the activist investor that took a 9% stake in Tripadvisor in 2025, announced in a letter to the company that it will field a slate of directors aimed at securing majority control of the company’s eight-member board.
"Tripadvisor should be formally exploring a sale of the entire company, in one or multiple transactions," Starboard said.
It ripped Tripadvisor and its management for:
Not engaging when it received an acquisition offer of $18-$19 per share in January 2025, but repurchased Liberty Tripadvisor's controlling stake for $16.28 per share. That meant "common shareholders have been left to absorb the subsequent value erosion." The stock closed Friday below $10 a share. Tripadvisor's lack of urgency in addressing value creation. For example, the company said in early November that “nothing would be off the table” in unlocking shareholder value at its dining reservations platform TheFork — yet it took
