Darren Huston, booking.com boss has been handed over the control of the company Priceline by its former CEO and President Jeff Boyd. This is a development straight out of the leftfield.
Darren Huston will continue his role as Booking.com CEO as he also takes on the daunting task of filling the shoes of Boyd, a figure at the centre of one of the most successful businesses in the history of the web, let alone the travel sector.
Darren Huston - Priceline flies into the restaurant business with $2.6 billion OpenTable deal
Darren Huston, CEO of the Priceline Group said “They provide us with a natural extension into restaurant marketing services and a wonderful and highly-valued booking experience”. “We look forward to helping the OpenTable team accelerate their global expansion.”
Priceline is snapping up restaurant-reservation platform OpenTable for $2.6 billion in cash, expanding the traditionally travel-only booking site’s services.
The online travel site Priceline has been buying its way to growth over the past decade, acquiring rivals Booking.com and Kayak.com. This latest purchase will help the company go beyond cars, hotels, and air flights.
Darren Huston further said “It’s critical to understand it’s the same customers, travelers are diners”. This is another leg of the stool for the Priceline Group.
Priceline Group Inc. has stepped up its spree of acquisition by purchasing OpenTable Inc. in a deal $2.60 billion deal, adding restaurant reservations to an online travel business already spanning hotels, flights and cars.
The OpenTable deal is the first big move for Priceline Chief Executive Officer Darren Huston, who took over in January with a challenging task: continue to fuel growth after his predecessor .
Priceline CEO Darren Huston said in the earnings release that "the summer travel season got off to a strong start." Customers booked $15 billion in airfares, hotel reservations and other travel services in the second quarter.
Darren Huston added that the third quarter could be "the largest quarter in our company's history."
The company expected the good times to continue.
The online travel company once reported earnings for a day that blew away Wall Street's forecasts, sending Priceline's stock up 6%. It hit a new all-time high of nearly $1,400 a share before pulling back a bit.
That's not a misprint. Priceline (PCLN) became the the highest-priced stock in the S&P 500 ... by far.
Priceline's market value went around $70.5 billion -- almost $20 billion higher than Uber.
Priceline CEO Darren Huston earned nearly $17.9 million in 2013 which was very good year for the company.
Here’s the breakdown of Darren Huston’s 2013 compensation, which occurred prior to his becoming Priceline Group CEO on January 1, 2014.
Darren Huston’s 2013 bonus was based on his being the CEO of Booking.com and its “excellent” performance, a Priceline financial filing states, as well as the additional duties he took on last year to be responsible for the Group’s inter-brand relations.
You might think of Huston’s role last year in coordinating relations between and technology-sharing among Booking.com, Priceline.com, Kayak, Agoda, and rentalcars.com in 2013 as sort of a CEO internship and a prelude to his taking the top spot in 2014, replacing Jeffery Boyd as CEO of the Priceline Group.
Darren Huston has sizable shoes to fill as Priceline’s CEO. The pieces are in place for him to extend Boyd’s record of accomplishments, but the sense of uncertainty among investors is justified. Much like Huston’s former company Microsoft, when Bill Gates handed the reins to Steve Ballmer, Priceline is changing the guard after an impressive run.
Darren Huston - Priceline is snapping up restaurant-reservation platform OpenTable for $2.6 billion in cash, expanding the traditionally travel-only booking site’s services.
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Darren Huston, who has spent 8 years with Microsoft and had responsibility of consumer and advertising business has been selected as Priceline CEO.
