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Expedia (EXPE) stock is climbing Thursday morning after a report that Uber (UBER) has looked at buying the travel booking company in what would be its largest acquisition yet.
The Financial Times on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the process, reports that Uber has met with advisors in recent months after a third party brought up the idea. A focus of those discussions, which the Times reports are still at a very early stage, was Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who joined Uber 2017.
Before that, he was Expedia’s expensive CEO who helped expand the company to more than 60 countries during his 12-year tenure. He’s still a non-voting member of Expedia’s board of directors. He’d likely recuse himself should talks begin.
Although no formal approach has been made to Expedia, the stock market had a big reaction to the news. Expedia stock is up 6% in pre-market trading, following an almost 50% boom over the last 12 months. Although Uber shares are down by 3%, that’s hardly made a dent in its 84% growth over the last year.
An acquisition of Expedia, a firm worth almost $20 billion by market capitalization, would tie into the company’s growth efforts. Besides its core ride-hailing business for consumers, Uber has expanded into food deliveries, corporate freight transportation, and train and flight bookings. In February, the company reached its first annual profit since it IPO-ed in 2019.
It would also be Uber’s first acquisition in a while. The company acquired Postmates, Drizly, Careem, and Transplace between 2019 and 2021, but has slowed down.
Although, as Uber has focused on autonomous driving, the company has purchased stakes in and struck partnerships with self-driving companies, such as Aurora, Waabi, and China’s DiDi. In August, Uber invested an undisclosed amount of cash in British self-driving startup Wayve. It also has deals with BYD (BYDDY), Google’s Waymo (GOOGL), and General Motors (GM)’ Cruise.