Priceline.com CEO Jeff Boyd told the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit in New York that he thinks that at least two out of the four players in the online travel sector - Priceline, Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia - could be in a position for either an IPO or a sale once the economy turns up.
“I think that the most important fact there is that two of the major players are owned by private equity,” he said. ”Orbitz is controlled by Blackstone. And Travelocity and Sabre Group are controlled by TPG and Silver Lake Partners. And what that means is eventually they will be looking for a way to monetize those private equity investments, and there’s two ways of doing it.
One is through a public offering and the other is a sale. So, eventually there’s going to be some transactions there, and that could be a catalyst to some consolidation.”
