Priceline Pays $40/share for Kayak, a 29% Premium over Thursday's Close
Thoughts?
This price represents ~32x TTM EBITDA....overpaid or good to buy them now before Kayak eats thier lunch?
...not surprisingly, Orbitz up 12% after hours.
What is a bit crazy here is the premium paid. I think this is actually a very smart move by Priceline since Kayak was showing a lot of momentum...
You know the guys at hipmunk.com are salivating right now, right?
overpaying is better than competition.
I've only ever used Expedia. I guess I like the name or something.
What's a hipmunk?
I have nowhere else to brag about this: I'm selling these GRPN puts in the morning.
ha, time to go long? would you ever touch GRPN long?
Not in a million years. Weaker barriers to entry than Sasha Gray. Hope you beefed up that position in FB puts by the way. With capital gains on everyone's minds and next week lockup looming, I'm getting pretty wet over here
Oh and not to mention all the insider selling!
Also:
Groupon slides 14% after Q3 miss. Groupon's (GRPN) shares slumped 14.8% premarket after its Q3 earnings missed expectations, with EPS coming in at zero and despite revenue climbing 32% to $568.6M. Groupon again used its earnings call to promise that its dismal international performance will get better as it improves the deal mix, personalization, and mobile support. However, Groupon again refused to promise that a big improvement will come next quarter.
Comments?
I'd be curious to know how much traction Hipmunk has. I've seen it and perused it before, but I generally went straight to Expedia as well. Hipmunk seems like a kitschier version of Kayak, only lesser known. It does have some neat features, though. Namely, the ability to sort flights by "pain level." Meaning, a flight might cost a little more, but be less of a pain in the ass than a cheaper flight that has connections or odd arrival times.
All the meta searches suck. They don't have functionality and all point to actual TAs so they'll never be powerful enough on their own. Though PCLN overpaid, someone convinced them the synergies must have been worth it. If someone follows up with Hipmunk (please don't) they'll have to overpay drastically too, so I think there's only a few stupid enough to do that. My money's on one of the private guys like Travelocity, or maybe some Blackstone-supported OWW action. Expedia really shouldn't, nor should TRIP though I won't hold my breath on them.
Your well-placed "(please don't)" gave me a good chuckle. It sort of amazes me how many basically duplicative companies there are in this space. Granted, it's a fucking huge space, but still.
Random side note, but it's somewhat relevant since Groupon has already come up in this thread. I wonder how Yipit is doing. For those that don't know, it's sort of the Kayak of Daily Deals. And, in addition to aggregating the deals, it also has a subscription data service covering the industry. Fairly interesting, though I don't know how much value there really is in it.
why did EXPE ever own TRIP? Answer that, and you will know why PCLN bought KYAK - its not threat of disintermediation
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