The Priceline Group announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Momondo Group in a cash transaction. The Priceline Group will acquire all outstanding shares of the company for USD 550 million. The deal is expected to close by the end of this year subject to regulatory approvals.
The Momondo group operates momondo and Cheapflights, both travel metasearch platforms popular in Europe. Cheapflights started off as a travel deals platform but switched to a metasearch model in 2015. Both the brands will roll under Priceline Group’s metasearch brand KAYAK and would help the brand in strengthening presence across European countries while keeping potential competition at bay. KAYAK has built a strong presence in some countries like France and Germany but will get help from the acquisition in markets like UK.
“Metasearch is appealing to consumers and we’re keen to expand our global footprint,” said Glenn Fogel, CEO of The Priceline Group. “Momondo and Cheapflights will be nice additions to our meta portfolio under KAYAK.”
“Momondo and Cheapflights have built great products serving loyal users across Europe,” said Steve Hafner, CEO, KAYAK. “We’re looking forward to learning from them and sharing best practices as our brands expand globally.”
“The Priceline Group has a proven track record of operating successful, customer-centric travel brands all over the world,” said Hugo Burge, CEO of Momondo Group. “We couldn’t be more excited to join such an esteemed group of loved brands and join forces with KAYAK to bring the best in meta search to our growing customer bases worldwide.”
The development would put KAYAK in a stronger position against UK based rival Skyscanner which was acquired by Ctrip recently. It is worth mentioning that Priceline group has close to 9 percent stake in Ctrip.
