The Amazing Priceline

The Economist had a great piece out on Priceline, the world’s largest online-travel company.

Priceline is the $100 billion company that investors and traders seem to ignore. For example,on Stocktwits, Priceline has 10,000 followers and Amazon has 85,000 followers.

It could be that they are headquartered in Connecticut, not Silicon Valley.

Ignoring them has been a massive missed opportunity.

They have 96 percent gross margins.

They are the biggest spender on Google ads.

They own Kayak.

They acquired Dutch company Booking.com in 2005, one of the best acquisitions of all time.

They own 5-10 percent of Ctrip ($CTRP), China’s biggest travel company (I own shares in Ctrip).

It is staggering that in 2000, Priceline was down 99 percent just like Amazon.

The stock was in the 50’s as recently as 2008, so an investment during the crisis would have already made you 40 times your money.

Congrats to the Priceline shareholders.