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Acquisitions
6 Months Ended
Jun. 30, 2014
Acquisitions

Note 3 – Acquisitions

In July 2014, we entered into an agreement to acquire Wotif.com Holdings Limited (“Wotif Group”), an Australian-based online travel company, for total cash consideration of approximately $703 million Australian dollars or $3.30 Australian dollars per share (approximately $658 million or $3.09 per share based on July 4, 2014 exchange rates), net of certain cash dividends that Wotif Group may distribute to its shareholders before closing. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2014, subject to certain shareholder and regulatory approvals.

In June 2014, we entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Auto Escape Group, one of Europe’s leading online car rental reservation companies. The transaction closed on July 29, 2014 following receipt of regulatory approval.

During March 2013, we completed the purchase of a 63% equity position (61.6% on a fully diluted basis) in trivago GmbH, a leading hotel metasearch company based in Germany. In conjunction with the acquisition, we paid €434 million in cash, or approximately $564 million based on March 8, 2013 exchange rates, of which $554 million was paid to the shareholders of trivago and $10 million was used to settle a portion of an employee compensation plan. In addition, we agreed to issue 875,200 shares of Expedia, Inc. common stock to certain employee stockholders in five equal increments on or about each of the first through fifth anniversaries of the acquisition.

As a result of the acquisition, we expensed $66 million to acquisition-related and other on the consolidated statements of operations during quarter ended March 31, 2013, which included approximately $57 million in stock-based compensation related to the issuance of the 875,200 shares of common stock as the issuance was determined separate from the business combination and was not contingent upon any future service or other certain event except the passage of time as well as approximately $10 million for the amount paid to settle a portion of the employee compensation plan of trivago, which was considered separate from the business combination. During the first quarter of 2014, we issued the first increment of 175,040 shares of Expedia, Inc. common stock.

The purchase agreement contains certain put/call rights whereby we may acquire and the minority shareholders of trivago may sell to us up to 50% and 100% of the minority shares of the company at fair value during the first quarter of 2016 and 2018, respectively. As the noncontrolling interest is redeemable at the option of the minority holders, we classified the balance as redeemable noncontrolling interest with future changes in the fair value above the initial basis recorded as charges or credits to retained earnings (or additional paid-in capital in absence of retained earnings). The put/call arrangement includes certain rollover provisions that, if triggered, would cause the minority shares to be treated as though they become mandatorily redeemable, and to be reclassified as a liability at the time such trigger becomes certain to occur. For further information on redeemable noncontrolling interest, see Note 6 — Redeemable Noncontrolling Interests.