Full text of BusinessWeek Article:
Preview Travel Is Set to Go Places
The departure in February of several members of the management team at Preview Travel (PTVL), including the CEO and the chief financial officer, looked as if it would spell trouble for the online travel agency. The stock, which hit 30 in early February, fell to 17 in mid-March, but it has since edged back up, to 20 5/8 on Apr. 14. Several analysts saw the drop as a chance to snap up shares on the cheap.
Investors should ''take advantage of any weakness as a buying opportunity,'' says Lauren Cooks Levitan, an analyst at BancBoston Robertson Stephens. Preview is ''well positioned to be a leading travel service provider on the Internet.'' With its modest market cap of $276 million, relative to the ''substantial online travel opportunity, we rate the stock a buy,'' says Levitan. The company offers one-stop shopping for air tickets, vacation packages, car rentals, hotels, and cruises.
Preview Travel, which has three Web sites, with more than 7 million registered members, is the primary travel service on AOL, which owns some 7% of the company. Adding that to AOL's large base of about 38 million users, Preview Travel's potential for growth is huge, notes Steve Weinstein, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities. Preview Travel is also a co-branded travel site for Excite, Lycos, and USA Today.
Weinstein believes that Preview Travel's big subscriber base and its lead position as provider of travel services online, makes the company ''a prime acquisition target for an E-commerce'' company. Weinstein says a buyer could pay three times its stock's market value.
BY GENE G. MARCIAL
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Like I said in my previoust post ( Message 8854794 )
PTVL is a no-brainer
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