Research archive for BKNG

Priceline reported numbers after hours. The company operates in the travel space. The investment thesis is simple, more people are going to use more online platforms to fulfil their experiences (which beats "things" in the modern era), and this business operates multiple websites and apps to facilitate that. Priceline operate and own the brands Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, rentalcars.com, and OpenTable.

At the beginning of the last financial year, 1 April 2015, the website synonymous with online booking, Booking.com (parent company and listed entity Priceline.com), had 670,000 places to visit. On August the 5th, 16 months later, the company announced that they had Added Its One-Millionth Property in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Of those, as you can see from the release, there are 23 million bookable rooms around the globe, with 7.2 million of those being homes, apartments and villas. Half of the total properties are NOT hotels, which in a sense allays many peoples fears that Airbnb will eat their lunch. They are all eating the same lunch. Besides, the biggest listed competitor in its space is Expedia, which is only 11.6 percent the size of Priceline.com.

Priceline has recently been in the news for the wrong reasons, the CEO resigned a couple of weeks ago after admitting to having an affair with an employee of the business. An improper relationship led to Chairman Jeffery H. Boyd Appointed Interim CEO, Huston had been at the business for years and years. Why oh why can't people just keep their personal "stuff" away from the business, this happens all too regularly. I guess, who am I to judge these things, it is another reminder that no matter how you may be at the top of your respective industry, a fall from grace is possible at any moment. Big up to the board for having the courage to press on with this action against what is essentially one of the most powerful people in the company. I am pretty sure that Mr. Huston has deep regrets.

Priceline.com had results the other evening, the market was far from kind to the stock, sending it down by around 9 percent in a single session. It certainly was not as if the results themselves were bad, they were not. First, before we being reviewing those results, what is Priceline and what do they do? Quite simply, through their operating and ownership of brands you know such as Booking.com, priceline.com itself, agoda.com, KAYAK, OpenTable (book your restaurant table) and rentalcars.com they are the biggest provider of online travel and services on the planet.