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Priceline To Buy OpenTable For $2.6 Billion
An anonymous reader sends this news from Bloomberg:
Priceline Group Inc. stepped up its acquisition spree by buying OpenTable Inc. in a deal valued at $2.6 billion, adding restaurant bookings to an online travel business already spanning flights, hotels and cars. The all-cash offer of $103 per share for the popular Internet restaurant reservation company is 46 percent higher than OpenTable's closing price yesterday. The deal is expected to be completed in the third quarter, the companies said in a statement today. Priceline is buying a company that seats over 15 million diners per month across more than 31,000 restaurants via online bookings.
William Shatner handled the negotiations.
a 4 star mystery restaurant at a time of our choosing for 50% off regular price
At this point, I think it's safe to say that we're in another tech bubble. But at least we can have fun seeing which bubble bursts first (HFT, medical, student loan, or tech).
Too bad restaurants are soon to be obsolete with 3D printing!
2.6 Billion. Really ?
Holy shit, maybe I should create some fairly non descript website that some hipsters use and then sell it for a whole frigging lot more than it will probabily ever bring in in revenue.
I have no idea how these people make these values, but they are totally not based on reality.
We are so totally heading towards a tech bubble burst. Unfortunately, it is my pension that will suffer when it goes pop and a few millionaires walk away smiling with a load of cash.
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
I eat out quite often, but never have i heard of opentable.
They're pretty big in the digital marketing world for restaurants. They've got a number of clones popping up now trying to mimic some of the better aspects of the business.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
Having worked in food service as a manager and a cook, Opentable has a rather guest/customer oriented understanding of how restaraunts and reservations actually work. As a restaraunt you can really only count on a reservation during 2 major holidays: valentines day and new years eve. Even then, about 20% will completely skip out on their reservation for any number of uncontrollable factors (i once had a rain storm that wiped out 3 hours of reserved dining.) Its irritating but sometimes you make out OK by backfilling walkins, but the trick is to not be given the scarlet letter of 'reservations only.'
most restaraunts avoid becoming too reliant on reservations, as there is an unspoken 1:8 rule that says for every person you turn away they remind 8 of their friends (including yelp) that you "only take reservations." Also once a restaraunt hits that fabled 1 year mark, reservations and foot traffic diminish reather precipitously. Pretty soon that 'opentbl' button on the PoS becomes the most unused thing on there. Its also worth mentioning that if you dont have opentable+pos then the manager or server at the lead PoS station is charged with ensuring that reservation is hand-marked, so theyll need email and need to be told to check it every 15 minutes (PoS slaves do not have applications.) Any server that gets busy during peak 'reservation time' and forgets to check now has to deal with customers screaming 'something something fucking opentable!' I have to hand it to restaraunts that flat-out refuse to handle reservations as well because apps like opentable have taken dining spots once frequented by locals and restricted them to foursquare clutching townies and business travelers for the majority of the week.
Good people go to bed earlier.
sorry, but somebody had to do it.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The URL is: .../priceline-to-buy-opentable-for-26-billion
The last dotcom bubble left us with huge amounts of equipment, dark fiber and Aeron chairs. I wonder what we're going to get out of this one?
It's a shame to see it happening again, but I guess I'll just sit back and watch like I did last time. I still wonder why I don't jump in and make my millions at the right time during these bubbles, but whatever....
Uber, Lyft, WhatsApp, Twitter and now OpenTable are going to be the next pets.com, boo.com and webvan.com.
you can't reserve tables at fast food or chain restaraunts
New Ads will start appearing on TV. You put in your bid for a meal, they contact the restaurants and fine one willing to take your money. You do not get a choice of time, date or meal, just a guaranteed reservation in a restaurant in your city.
Not bad 2.6B for 580 -> ~4,5mil/employee.
FB though is 165B for 6820 -> 24mil per.
Where I work is ~1mil/employee
Has the bubble formed yet?