A fresh report from Bloomberg that Travelport is plannning a $3.2 billion public offering in the U.K. set off speculation that the company could divest its 48% stake in Orbitz Worldwide in the process and deliver OWW to Expedia Inc.
In a note to investors Dec. 18, Jake Fuller, an analyst at Soleil Securities, doesn’t come down on one side or another about whether Expedia would scoop up Orbitz in tandem with a reported February 2010 Travelport IPO, but he says a potential “combo points to potential accretion in the 5%+ range” for Expedia.
Fuller, who also analyzes this sort of stuff for PhoCusWright, cautions that investors likely would react negatively to such a move by Expedia because the OTA, with Orbitz in hand, would increase its risk in further exposing itself “to the low margin domestic [airline] ticket business.”
Read the full story at http://www.tnooz.com/2009/12/18/news/would-travelport-ipo-deliver-orbitz-to-expedia/