Uber reportedly discussed bid for travel booker Expedia: FT

Uber Technologies (UBER) reportedly discussed a bid for travel booking platform Expedia Group (EXPE) — whose portfolio of travel sites includes Trivago, Orbitz, and Vrbo — according to the Financial Times.

Morning Brief anchors Seana Smith and Brad Smith examine this headline and the massive advantage a travel booking acquisition would be for the rideshare giant.

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.

This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Editor's note: This post was updated to more accurately the story.

Video Transcript

Uber has explored a potential takeover of Expedia.

That's according to a report from the Financial Times, it would be the rideshare company's largest acquisition with the travel booking company worth nearly $20 billion.

Expedia is now Uber's interest is reportedly in the very early stages here.

No formal approach has been made and no discussions are currently taking place.

It seems between the two entities.

However, you're taking a look at shares reaction to news of this and there's also an analyst note out, we'll get to that analyst note in a hot second here, but I kind of came up with three key reasons why people should actually care about this because even in our morning meeting, I was trying to figure out.

All right, why do we care?

They haven't talked yet, we haven't received what the premium would look like at all, but here's why you should care.

Number one Expedia owns verb that should be, you know, uh a, a hatred sign for a Air BNB or A B and B stock that should hate to see Expedia Uber deal potentially coming.

But the reaction there right now for airbnb muted as of now that's light fair right now.

Um Winter release from Air BNB that was yesterday.

So we'll see how much that's still playing into the stock.

However, here's one big reason why this could potentially good for booking elevated forecasting clarity here.

You think about the advanced integration into Uber bookings.

If they're able to create this super app that would be tied into travel, itineraries, airport pick up and drop offs, plus that data insight into the demand pockets regionally as well, that would be massive for what Uber is able to really foretell to some of the investors on a quarterly basis.

And then you add in the depth of data that would certainly be brought to the fray here.

Consumers served would catapult some of the active membership as well.

So I would say this is a major one for Uber if they were able to pull this off.

Yes.

And also just the connection between Dra the CEO of Uber and his past experience as the Ceo of Expedia.

He was, he led Expedia for over a decade there.

So obviously, there is some synergy and what was called out within this uh analyst.

No, a Milius this morning was talking about the fact that this would really, ultimately if, if this was true and there were to be uh further talks or further expansion plans down the line.

This would really show Uber's push to become a super app here and really taking it to the next level one stop shop for all things travel.

And I think that almost tells us more about the direction here from Uber and then just taking a step back, been talking about maybe more of the macro landscape.

You and I have been talking about the return of deal making activity.

We're clearly seeing that within the bank earnings over the last week or so.

And so when you see the potential size of this deal and what this would ultimately mean, uh, for Uber's a larger footprint here going forward, you also have to think that maybe we could see more of these types of deals and more of the sizes of deals here going forward into the New Year.

Yeah, absolutely.

Expedia caring about just shy of a $20 billion market gap at this juncture.