The Internet travel booking company Priceline announced today it will acquire the online restaurant reservation service OpenTable for $103 a share. The all-cash deal will cost Priceline a total of $2.6 billion.
The deal is expected to officially close sometime in the third quarter of 2014. When that happens, OpenTable will be run as an independent business within the Priceline Group. OpenTable will continue to be based in San Francisco and lead by its current management team.
Darren Huston, the President and CEO of The Priceline Group, stated today:
"OpenTable is a great match for The Priceline Group. They provide us with a natural extension into restaurant marketing services and a wonderful and highly-valued booking experience for our global customers. We look forward to helping the OpenTable team accelerate their global expansion, increase the value offered to their restaurant partners, and enhance the end-to-end experience for our collective customers across desktop and mobile devices.!
Formed in 1998, OpenTable allows its users to reserve seats at over 31,000 restaurants in the U.S, Canada, Mexico, the UK, France, Germany and Japan. The company says it has seated over 125 million people in those restaurants since launching its first mobile apps in 2008.
Source: Priceline
