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Technology Stocks : Booking Holdings (formerly Priceline) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hdl who wrote (2672)	8/30/2003 1:44:46 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Respond to of 2743

Orbitz has refiled their S-1. sec.gov PCLN may end up as a good back door play on the Orbitz IPO. chicagotribune.com Orbitz public offering is back United, 4 other founding airlines to share proceeds By Susan Chandler Tribune staff reporter Published August 29, 2003 Orbitz Inc. is again planning to go public. The Chicago-based online travel agency filed an amended application for an initial public offering Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The application did not provide much detail about how many shares Orbitz wants to sell on the Nasdaq stock market or at what price. But it did say where the money raised will go. Some of it will go back to the five airlines that founded Orbitz three years ago, while the rest will be deposited into the company's coffers to help it compete with industry giants Expedia Inc. and Travelocity. Last year, Orbitz put the brakes on a $125 million IPO because of an antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice. Last month, after a three-year probe, the department concluded that Orbitz had not hurt competition in the online travel business. That cleared the offering for takeoff. The department was looking at whether Orbitz's ownership by rival airlines represented a form of price collusion. Orbitz was founded by United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines and American Airlines to hold down their distribution costs and create more competition in the rapidly growing online travel game. The sale of shares, which still requires SEC approval, will not affect the airlines' control of Orbitz. Under a "controlled company" exception to Nasdaq's proposed independence requirements, Orbitz would not have to have a majority of outside, independent directors on its board. The majority of Orbitz's directors would still come from its founding airlines, according to the application, and those directors would continue to oversee executive compensation and nominations of other directors. They would also have a say over whether Orbitz makes acquisitions or is sold to another company. An Orbitz IPO would be an ego boost for the Chicago area, which has seen some of its prominent public companies acquired by out-of-towners in recent years. Meanwhile, few local companies have gone public to help take their place. Last year, benefits consulting firm Hewitt Associates Inc. in Lincolnshire braved the rocky public markets with a $212 million offering. And in 2001, Philip Morris Cos. sold 16 percent of Northfield-based Kraft Foods Inc. for nearly $9 billion, the second-largest IPO in U.S. history. Last year, according to the application, Orbitz racked up $175.5 million in revenue and trimmed its net loss to $17.9 million from $103.2 million in 2001. For the first six months, Orbitz has lost $5.3 million, compared with a $16.5 million loss in the same period last year. Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

To: hdl who wrote (2672)	9/22/2003 2:52:23 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2743

Diller's Hotwire Deal Singes Priceline By George Mannes Senior Writer 09/22/2003 12:34 PM EDT thestreet.com With Barry Diller assimilating another company into his travel empire, Captain Kirk and his crew are on the defensive. The Diller-led InterActiveCorp (IACI:Nasdaq - commentary - research) said Monday that it had agreed to purchase the discount travel Web site Hotwire.com for $665 million in cash. Shares of InterActiveCorp -- which already owns travel sites Expedia and Hotels.com -- fell on news of the deal. But shares in Hotwire rival priceline.com (PCLN:Nasdaq - commentary - research) -- the travel site hawked by Star Trek veteran William Shatner -- fell even further, with investors perhaps rattled by the valuation implications for priceline.com or by the perceived futility of resisting IAC's competition. Underscoring the efforts that IAC is making to address all segments in the online travel business, the company also announced Monday that it was establishing an IAC Travel division, which will be led by Expedia CEO Erik Blachford. Shares in IAC fell $1.24 to $35.01, while priceline.com's shares dropped $3.36, or 9%, to $34.30. IAC's deal for Hotwire casts a spotlight on a section of the discount travel market in which consumers buy their plane tickets or pay for their hotel rooms before they learn which airline they'll be flying or exactly which hotel they'll be staying at. Priceline.com calls the system its "Name Your Own Price" travel service, while IAC calls the market "opaque" travel. While priceline.com appears to be bigger and more profitable than Hotwire, the priceline.com competitor appears to be growing at a faster pace. Priceline.com will likely report a gross profit of $150 million in 2003, along with 46 cents per share in earnings, according to Legg Mason analyst Thomas Underwood, who rates the company a hold. (His firm hasn't done underwriting for priceline.com.) IAC says the privately held Hotwire should report 2003 net revenue -- equivalent to priceline.com's gross profit, says Underwood -- of $110 million. The transaction will be "slightly accretive" to IAC's "adjusted EPS" in 2004, says IAC. Meanwhile, Hotwire had 7.5 million different U.S. visitors to its site in August, according to comScore Media Metrix, while priceline.com, which also operates other travel sites and offers personal financial services through a licensee, had 5.6 million visitors to its flagship site. On the basis of the numbers in the IAC-Hotwire deal, plus other adjustments, priceline.com would be valued at $25 per share on the same basis, Underwood wrote in a Monday morning note. He says he expects priceline.com to trade down "modestly" over the next few days "as investors digest the implications of the Hotwire acquisition for Priceline with regard to both Priceline's valuation and the altered competitive landscape with Hotwire being owned by a deep-pocketed competitor." Though IAC has traditionally used its stock as currency for acquisitions, the all-cash nature of the Hotwire deal shouldn't be interpreted as reflecting the sellers' negative opinion of IAC's stock, says Underwood. Given that Hotwire's current owners are the Texas Pacific Group investment firm along with several airlines -- American parent AMR (AMR:NYSE - commentary - research), America West (AWA:NYSE - commentary - research), Continental (CAL:NYSE - commentary - research), Northwest (NWAC:Nasdaq - commentary - research), United parent UAL and US Airways -- the deal's currency more likely reflects the sellers' need for cash, speculates Underwood. He has a hold rating on IAC, and his firm is a 1% owner of the stock. In its own comment on the deal, Standard & Poor's said the transaction doesn't affect its rating of IAC's debt. "Based on Hotwire's expected 2003 revenues of about $110 million, the purchase price is steep, and given Hotwire's short history of profitability, the time frame to achieve a return on investment is likely to be long," says the ratings service. "Standard & Poor's comfort with the acquisition therefore is linked to its moderate size and InterActiveCorp's experience in online travel."