Today Liberty Interactive acquired voting control of TripAdvisor after investing an additional $312+ million in the travel site.
Liberty, which was already TripAdvisor’s
largest shareholder, now owns about 22% of TripAdvisor’s shares, giving
it control over 57% of total votes.
Liberty purchased nearly 5.0 million shares for $62.50 each from Barry Diller, who relinquished his
majority control and is stepping down from his position as chairman. The
media mogul acquired TripAdvisor through InterActiveCorp (IACI) in 2004.
Fox Business reported “My only reason for resigning as chairman and disposing of my
interests is that I have more obligations than time and transferring
control of TripAdvisor to Liberty is something I’m very comfortable with
— Liberty has proven itself a fine steward and leader of its
controlled businesses,” Diller said.
TripAdvisor’s market cap is currently $5.82b. Share prices today were up 6.82%.
