Skift Take
HomeAway just celebrated its 10th anniversary. Now there is a big question as to whether it will still be an independent company by the time the 11th anniversary rolls around. The company would be expensive to buy, but the betting here is that someone will acquire it, sooner rather than later.
The consolidation flurry in online travel is accelerating as Expedia Inc. announced its intent to acquire Orbitz Worldwide, after nabbing Wotif and Travelocity in the last few months and Trivago a couple of years ago.
The Priceline Group now counts Kayak and OpenTable in the fold, and TripAdvisor picked up Viator and a series of European restaurant reservations sites since the middle of 2014.
There's been much speculation that there aren't too many big companies left to acquire and that HomeAway would make a nice addition for one or more of the big acquisitive companies, especially Expedia Inc., which has a new vacation rental partnership with HomeAway, or the Priceline Group, which is strong in vacation rentals in Europe.
Skift discussed the issue and related ones with HomeAway CEO Brian Sharples, who co-founded the company 10 years ago.
An edited version of the interview follows:
Skift: It would seem to me that with all of the consolidation going on in the online travel world that it would put HomeAway even more in play than it already was. What do you think of that theory?
Brian Sharples: Boy, I mean yeah. I guess I can't necessarily disagree with that, Dennis. We're clearly the leader in a very attractive segment of accommodations. And, as you know, any public company can be bought if the premium's right and the price is right. But the fact that we remain an independent public company I guess tells you that nobody's done that yet.
And I don't know if it makes it more attractive or not. It's one less asset that those guys can buy. My sense of things is that you really do have a race for global travel dominance between three U.S. companies and you know the three [Expedia Inc., the Priceline Group and TripAdvisor.] They've been doing that with a combination of organic growth and consolidation. Our stock's been up and down this year but if you just look at HomeAway from a multiple perspective, we're the highest-valued company from multiple perspective in travel. So, it's not necessarily a cheap company.
A lot of companies, when dealing with a new market, may want to test and try and see what they can do on their own or do with a partnership before they're willing to take a bigger leap in that. So, we're having fun watching everybody try and we'll see what happens from there.
Skift: We're speakin
