Expedia, Inc. (EXPE)

Expedia Inc. along with its subsidiaries, owns and operates a portfolio of brands, which provides travel related products and services, for leisure and corporate travelers. Its brands include Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Worldwide Travel Exchange, Classic Vacations, Expedia Corporate Travel, eLong, and TripAdvisor. Its operations are spread across United States, UK, Canada, Australia, China, Japan, Mexico and other international boundaries.

The conjunction with Citi group will enable travelers to earn “Thank You” points on their bookings, which is similar to a reward programme. This initiative will provide Expedia Inc. access across 10 million Citi’s members. Recently the company has forayed in Japan, world’s second largest travel market, through launch of its website Expedia.co.jp, which offers in depth hotel content. It also intends to launch airline ticketing and package travel functions in future. Expedia Inc. plans to enter India by 2007, as the online travel market in India is at a very nascent stage, with very few players, which could drive the growth of Expedia Inc. in the long term.

Expedia Corporate Travel has recently launched its new Global Flight Search platform in different languages, offering European customers enhanced flight search and booking facilities. This will help them to expand its global reach.

The brand strength of Expedia Inc. provides competitive advantage over less established competitors. Online travel companies enjoy very limited risk as they have little or no inventory risk, which helps them in better pricing control. Expedia Inc. is well positioned to outperform most competitors, with management committed to drive it as the leading travel planner.

this one is a value play.

Entirely too many competitors

Expedia is selling for half its fair value based on discounted free cash flows. The free cash flows are relatively consistent, and the company's ROIC at 14% is well in excess of its cost of capital, so it's adding value. Their new European business offers a growth kicker, because use of services like Expedia's is relatively new there. The huge discount to fair value seems to overdiscount any risks the company faces.

Nobody is going overseas. Price of flights are way too high and the value of the dollar is way too low.

Balance sheet shows $1.9 billion negative tangible value, current assets minus current liabilities is negative $800 million, cash flow for last year break even only because they increased liabilities. They have a small profit on paper but not nearly enough to cover the debt and the $800 million they need to come up with to cover the liabilities coming due in the next year. Add to this the declining economy and increasing competition and it looks bad for Expedia. To raise funds, they need to increase debt a lot or issue stock, both of which should drive the price down.

I see it as significantly undervalued relative to competitors and placement in the industry. The idea persists that travel providers will figure out how to provide their services directly to the customer, but I don't think that makes too much sense. Why do you bother with the individuals when there is a service that will give you the most information at once? History says I'm right.

Great user experience via Website. Good advertising and brand. Going global to meet international travel needs. Looks to be a win long-term

Good time to jump in, looks attractive in comparison to PriceLine, similar growth rates but much lower PE. Things could slow in the travel industry, but if there is a retreat in Oil/Gas prices this year, this stock should bounce......hopefully in the right direction which is up. I see more upside than downside.

Economic hits mean people stay home, alas.

Tough environment to operate in, but the internet travel market is still growing. Expedia's balance sheet is strong enough to wait out better times. I prefer PCLN but EXPE is trading at lower multiples, so both should outperform S&P.

With deep discounts and promotions expect Expedia to be a godsend to people wanting to travel.

This stock has always done well during January earnings season.

This pick makes no sense to me either being unemployment is the highest in 2 decades! But if going up I'm in.

MFI following, all have negative Fool ratios but impressive 3 month gains

EXPE is the 800 pound gorilla when it comes to online travel.
However, the consumer is overstreched and business travelling has fallen victim to cost saving efforts and alternatives (amongst others CISCO's video conferencing gear).
As I see it, the cake is hardly growing during the next 1 to 2 years. and the smaller wolves (PCLN, OWW, Travelocity) are still hungry and agressive (see booking and cancellation fee waving).
What can be worse than a price war and / or losing share in a shrinking market and at the same time having Barry Diller as chairman, who seriously belives that owning 9+ million shares renders the company to him as a private toy?
(Yes, I am talking about his last "self-buy-out" attempt, which if it had succeded, would have damaged the balance sheet for a pretty long time, if not to say irreparably).
I think, the run up of nearly 150% since March was driven by sentiment rather than by fundamental. And sentiment can change very fast. Alas let's shorten EXPE !

Travel service provider. It is overpriced should go to more realistic level soon.

a good travel website

They lost their hotels.com trademark and cannot protect that name on the Internet search engines. Consequently, they will start losing massive sales to competitors and that will start to show up on the bottom line.