John Malone has structured Trip Advisor Inc. like he’s ready to make a deal.
Malone, chairman of Liberty Interactive Corp. as well as several sister companies whose names start with Liberty, is known for engineering complex and lucrative financial arrangements. In August, he did a tax-free spinoff of Liberty Interactive’s controlling interest in TripAdvisor, a $9.7 billion website where users write reviews for vacation resorts.
That transaction may soon lead to another.
There are two ways it could work: TripAdvisor, to gain its independence, could choose to buy out shareholders of the $1.8 billion holding company, which is called Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings Inc. Or larger rivals Priceline Group Inc. or Expedia Inc. could buy the holding company to seize control.
“John Malone is in the business of maximizing the value of his holdings,” said Joseph Stauff, a New York-based analyst on the event-driven/special situations team at Susquehanna Financial Group LLP. “He’s got a stake in a publicly traded company, and he’s trying to get a premium valuation on that. How does he do it? He punts out his holding in TripAdvisor knowing damn well that more than just TripAdvisor wants to bid for it.”
Courtnee Ulrich, a spokeswoman for Douglas County-based Liberty TripAdvisor, didn’t return a phone call or e-mail seeking comment. Kevin Carter, a spokesman for Newton, Mass.-based TripAdvisor, declined to comment.
TripAdvisor’s fate is technically now in the hands of Greg Maffei, the CEO of Liberty TripAdvisor, because Malone swapped his voting shares for Maffei’s common shares in December.
