Priceline To Buy OpenTable For $2.6 Bln

(RTTNews) - Online travel company Priceline Group Inc. (PCLN) has agreed to acquire online restaurant reservations provider OpenTable Inc. (OPEN) for $2.6 billion in cash, the two companies said Friday.

The acquisition will enable Priceline to expand its presence in providing restaurant marketing services. Shares of OpenTable are gaining more than 47 percent in pre-market trades.

Under the definitive agreement, Norwalk, Connecticut-based Priceline will acquire OpenTable for $103 per share. The per share price represents a 46.2 percent premium to OpenTable's closing stock price of $70.43 on Thursday.

The boards of directors of both Priceline and OpenTable have unanimously approved the transaction, which will be effected through a tender offer and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2014.

Following the closing, OpenTable will continue to be headquartered in San Francisco, California, and will operate as an independent business led by its current management team within Priceline Group.

Darren Huston, President & CEO of Priceline Group said, " OpenTable is a great match for The Priceline Group. They provide us with a natural extension into restaurant marketing services and a wonderful and highly-valued booking experience for our global customers."

Overall, online travel companies have been faring well as more business and leisure travelers patronize their sites for booking rooms and other services.

OpenTable's online restaurant reservations help seat more than 15 million diners per month across more than 31,000 restaurants. The company has seated more than 125 million diners worldwide through its mobile solutions that were introduced in 2008.

Meanwhile, Priceline's reservations enable an average of more than 1 million guests to stay every night in accommodations at over 480,000 properties in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.

Priceline's products include Booking.com, Agoda.com, an Asia-based online hotel reservation service available in 38 languages, and rentalcars.com that offers car rental services in about 6,000 locations worldwide.

In addition, Priceline provides reservation services for hotel rooms, airline tickets, rental cars, vacation packages, and cruise trips under the priceline.com brand through its Name Your Own Price service. Its Kayak websites and mobile apps allow people to compare hundreds of travel sites at once, and it also provides travel insurance services.

On Tuesday, Priceline said it acquired buuteeq, Inc., a Seattle, Washington-based digital marketing platform for hotels worldwide. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

PCLN closed Thursday's trading at $1,226.00, down $22.72 or 1.82 percent on a volume of 801,132 shares. In Friday's pre-market, the stock is up $8.00 or 0.65 percent to 1,234.00.

OPEN closed Thursday's trading at $70.43, down $0.70 or 0.98 percent on a volume of 433,377 shares. In Friday's pre-market trades, the stock is up $32.74 or 46.49 percent to $103.17.