Shares of TripAdvisor (TRIP) are up more than 9% to $38.91 in morning trading the day after the stock was one of only two S&P gainers yesterday during the market’s rout.
The Fly notes that on December 6, 2017, Macquarie analyst Matthew Brooks commented on M&A speculation and said Priceline (PCLN) was unlikely to buy TripAdvisor.
Brooks said TripAdvisor’s bargaining power over suppliers would be lost if Priceline bought the company, Priceline has 137M reviews and the benefit of adding 570M from TripAdvisor is uncertain, a high proportion of TripAdvisor traffic is research, not purchase, and Google (GOOGL) is TripAdvisor’s main competitor, making it difficult to improve earnings power under Priceline.
Expedia (EXPE), the other major OTA that has been rumored as another potential buyer of TripAdvisor, is up 1.7% to $127.11 this morning.
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