M&A tips

More than two months after Tripadvisor formed an independent committee to mull a potential sale, there has been silence from both controlling shareholder Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings and Tripadvisor itself.

Corporate travel could get complicated: Expedia Group has a big stake in Amex Global Business Travel. Booking.com is partners with CWT. What happens to those relationships if the merger between Amex GBT and CWT goes through? Amex GBT CEO Paul Abbott specifically noted CWT’s ties to Booking.com for Business as an upside to the deal as it tries to reach more small businesses customers.

Ever since Liberty Tripadvisor disclosed in early February that it was exploring a potential transaction in which itself and Tripadvisor would be acquired in an all-cash deal, speculation was rife that a private equity firm was behind the possible move.

Why pay Google even more to acquire customers when your company can open travel agency storefronts, and counsel customers to book trips online?

The prospect of a deal to acquire Tripadvisor hung over the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Thursday and executives didn’t offer any further details.

Expedia Group frequently talks up the benefits of its sale of corporate travel agency Egencia to American Express Global Business Travel. Benefits include: A 10-year pact to supply Amex GBT with lodging inventory, and Expedia’s equity stake in it, initially valued in 2021 at $815 million.

There is a league of short-term rental operators quietly reducing competition through consolidation. 

Chinese tourism group Fosun is in advanced talks to sell its Thomas Cook brand to Polish online travel agent eSky, Sky News reported on Monday, citing sources.

Short-term rental data provider AirDNA has acquired vacation rental software and channel management system Uplisting for an undisclosed sum. This marks the company’s foray into the property technology business.

There’s already is a tug of war between corporations that want their employees back into the office full-time, and workers who don’t want to give up working from home or as digital nomads.

Two UK-based short-term accommodation brands are joining forces: UnderTheDoorMat Group and Veeve are merging in a share exchange. 

Wyndham isn’t warming to Choice’s latest attempt at a hostile takeover, and characterized it Tuesday as a “step backwards.”

eTraveli Group was left at the altar last week when the European Commission blocked its acquisition by Booking Holdings on antitrust grounds. Booking is appealing, but eTraveli CEO Mathias Hedlund said the $1.8 billion deal would be “no longer in play.” “We are a bigger fish now than we were at the time,” Hedlund said in an exclusive interview with Skift, referring to when the company signed the merger deal in November 2021. He said eTraveli is 2.4 times larger than before the pandemic.

The European Commission has all but officially blocked Booking Holding’s almost 2-year-old pending acquisition of Swedish flight-tech company eTraveli Group, and Booking confidentially sent a memo to national competition authorities detailing why it thinks the commission’s arguments are flawed.

The European Commission is set to block Booking Holdings’ $1.8 billion deal to acquire Sweden’s eTraveli Group, a critically important transaction that’s been in limbo for nearly two years.

HotelTonight founder and CEO Sam Shank helped build the fastest and easiest to use hotel booking app in the world — initially focused on guests booking last-minute and same-day hotel rooms, sometimes from the local bar — but he hung around Airbnb for three years and eight months after the short-term rental site acquired the business, and Thursday was his last day there.

Just a little more than two months into his new role as CEO of U.S.-based property manager Vacasa, Rob Greyber detailed his priorities: Downplay acquisitions of vacation rental portfolios in favor of a more productive sales team and organic growth, and tackle longstanding customer support issues at the local level.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, January 17. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Hotel real estate investor and management company Highgate signed a deal to acquire Viceroy Hotels & Resorts as Highgate intensifies its quest to add luxury lifestyle hotels to its already ample portfolio.

Four major online travel companies had around $34 billion in cash and equivalents on the books at the end of 2022 — and that’s considerably more liquid dinero than they had at the end of pre-Covid 2019.

Despegar is increasing its product and geographic diversification but its net loss widened a tad in the fourth quarter because of weak travel demand and higher expenses.