TravelNow.com's parent completes spinoff

TravelNow.com parent Expedia Inc., completed a spinoff Aug. 9 from its parent, IAC/InterActiveCorp. Expedia stock is independently listed on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol EXPE.

Expedia, based in Bellevue, Wash., is the parent company of several other online travel sites including Expedia.com and Hotels.com.

Katie Deines, public relations manager for Expedia.com, said she doesn’t know of any effect the merger will have on TravelNow.com’s local operations.

“It’ll continue to operate as is,” she said. “It’s powered by Hotels.com, but it’s a separate brand. As far as I know, there are no plans to change the brand TravelNow.com into Expedia.com or anything like that.”

Now that the separation has been completed, IAC will continue to operate its other Internet holdings, which include Match.com, Lending Tree and Ask Jeeves Inc. Shares of Expedia closed Aug. 10 at $23.70, while IAC stock (Nasdaq: IACID), excluding Expedia, closed the day at $26.59 per share.

TravelNow.com’s journey from a Springfield-based private company to part of one of the largest Internet travel groups is a long and convoluted one.

TravelNow.com was founded in Springfield in 1995 by Jeff Wasson and Chris Noble. Since then, it has gone through two mergers, first with Florida’s Sentry Accounting Inc. and later with Hotels.com, which is now under Expedia’s umbrella.

TravelNow.com first went public in 1999, in conjunction with the Sentry merger. It was later purchased by Hotel Reservations Network, which changed its name in 2002 to Hotels.com.

Bill Perkin, founder of Perkin Marketing, was one of TravelNow.com’s original investors. He said the company now is much more secure than it was in the beginning.

“(In the beginning) you could talk to a broker, and they wouldn’t even discuss it because they considered it a high-risk investment,” Perkin said. “But that’s where the potential payoff and return is. The money I put in, I got basically a 40-times return on it, which you can’t do with a larger company. Then again, up until that time I thought I was going to lose it all.”

Perkin sold his shares in the company as part of the 1999 merger and is not currently invested in Expedia.[[In-content Ad]]