Orbitz to sell for $1.2 billion

Travel giant in talks with Cendant

[Freedom]

Shares of Orbitz rocketed 27 percent in after-hours action on Tuesday after published reports said the online travel site was in talks to be purchased by Cendant for $26 to $28 per share, or more than $1 billion in cash.

[theregister.co.uk...]

Travel company Cendant, the owner of Avis and Budget car hire firms, is in advanced talks to buy travel website Orbitz for $1bn.

Orbitz was started by five US airlines in 2000 and floated on Nasdaq for $300m in December 2003. It competes with the likes of Expedia and Travelocity, offering flights, hotels and vacations. Shares jumped 25 per cent late last night on reports of an imminent takeover. Both companies held board meetings last night to decide on the deal, according to newswires.

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 12:38 pm (utc) on Sep. 29, 2004]
[edit reason] added links [/edit]

[Crush]

wish I owned orbitz. sob back to work

[TomWaits]

Business 2.0 had a prescient article on travel website consolidation this month in the October issue. I highly recommend it.

[Freedom]

From $300 mn to 1.2 billion in 1 year. Not bad. I never would have put that kind of price tag on Orbitz.

Is Cendant overpaying?

[Shak]

amazing what a good mgmt team, great product and 10 billion pop-ups can do for ya ;)

Shak

[Gabor]

10 billion popups and a good investment turns a great profit....

[notsosmart]

I am a dromomaniac (I get off on constantly planning travel) and can tell you that orbitz's product is indeed a good one.

One thing that many don't know is that orbitz drives the reservation systems of a few airlines, so they probably make hefty fees off every transaction at ual.com, for example.

Whether the brand is worth 1.2 billion...? I don't know.

Someday I'll sell my cr@ppy little site for 1.2 bln!

[choster]

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure United's web system is based on software by ITN (i.e. American Express), not ITA-- to United's regret (and mine, as a 2nd tier United frequent flyer). Besides Orbitz, ITA software is also the back-end for Air Canada and Continental, and for the Galileo travel agents' system.

[Kirby]

While thatt has to make Barry Diller smile as his travel brands smoke orbitz in transactions, me thinks notsosmart is smarter than he says.;)

[notsosmart]

Upon further review, choster is right.

What gets me, is that Orbitz was started by the big 6. NOW they are in effect managing the feat of seling a channel to the backend that allows consumers to purxhase their product, while at the same time continuing to charge commission for every transaction.

Brilliant. It's too bad 2 out of six are doomed.

[cornwall]

Cendant own in the hotel & travel business alone
[cendant.com...]
gives their complete list of subsidiaries. The hotel and travel ones are:-

Amerihost InnŽ
Days InnŽ
Howard JohnsonŽ
Knights InnŽ
Ramada InnŽ
Super 8Ž
TravelodgeŽ
VillagerŽ
Wingate InnŽ

Fairfield Resorts

Lodging.com

Galileo International
HotelClub.com
RatesToGo.com

[cornwall]

..and this is how they are doing it

[cendant.com...]