What does $300 million buy you these days (apart from a minority stake in Virgin Atlantic)? It gets you Barry Diller's shares and voting control of TripAdvisor.
That's what happened today when Liberty Interactive Corporation paid $299 million to purchase a total of 4.8 million shares of common stock in the user review giant from Diller, at a price of $62.50 per share.
Liberty now owns 18 million shares of common stock and almost 13 million shares in Class B common stock in TripAdvisor, giving it around 22% of equity and 57% of total votes across the relevant stocks.
Diller has resigned as chairman and senior executive of TripAdvisor as a result of the transaction, but will remain as a director.
He says the "only reason" for exiting the company is that he has "more obligations than time". Liberty is "a fine steward and leader of its controlled businesses", he adds.
TripAdvisor CEO and co-founder Steve Kaufer says:
Greg Maffei, Liberty president and CEO, adds:
Liberty is a major player in a number of digital commerce outfits, including shopping network QVC, Right Start, MotoSport and Evite.
TripAdvisor is expected to make an announcement around the appointment of a new chairman of the company following his or her election by the current board of directors.