Expedia has completed its acquisition of Orbitz Worldwide, including all of its brands and assets, for US$12 per share in cash, representing an enterprise value of approximately US$1.6 billion. The announcement follows the US Department of Justice’s approval of the acquisition that was proposed earlier this year.
“Our mission is to revolutionize travel through the power of technology,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO at Expedia. “Given Orbitz’s focus on transforming the way consumers around the world plan and book travel, we couldn’t be more aligned. As we bring our talented teams and capabilities together, we will be well positioned to accelerate the pace of innovation to deliver even better customer experiences to Orbitz’s loyal customer base and to further enhance the marketing and distribution capabilities we offer to our global supply partners.”
Following the announcement, the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) expressed its “disappointment” with the Department of Justice’s decision to approval the deal in a statement:
“Simply put, this decision will hurt consumers and small business owners, and remove choice from the marketplace. By approving this deal, only two players control the online marketplace: Priceline and the behemoth Expedia, now owning Orbitz, Travelocity, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Cheap Tickets, and Trivago. Together, these two players control over 95% of the online travel agency bookings in the United States. We continue to believe that increased consolidation is bad for consumers and bad for business.”