Expedia Inc. agreed to acquire HomeAway Inc. for $3.9 billion in cash and stock, raising the shares of both companies on the stock market. The agreement was made due to the competition of apartment-sharing startup Airbnb Inc. This agreement is indicative of the changing landscape of the vacation-travel industry.
The travel website is giving $38.31 a share for HomeAway. In extended trading on Wednesday shares rose to $39.54, Expedia seeing a 6.4 percent stock raise. Airbnb is partly responsible for the cash-stock deal between Expedia and HomeAway–startups are driving forward the travel market with new capacity that competes with lodging operators. This is a continuing trend between Expedia and HomeAway who’ve been partners for two years, Expedia listing 115,000 HomeAway vacation listings on their travel search engine.
HomeAway features more than a million paid vacation rental home listings in 190 countries. This deal is projected to lift stocks of both companies while providing direct competition to Airbnb. Expedia competitor, Priceline Group, doesn’t own a dedicated “sharing economy” travel site at the moment, which shakes up the industry for the foreseeable future.
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