Shares of online travel booking giant Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE) fell more than 4.3% in morning trading Monday, shortly after new reports suggested that its longtime CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, has been offered the vacant chief executive position at Uber.
According to TechCrunch, Uber’s board has reached the decision to offer Khosrowshahi the CEO job and will be officially announcing the move to employees soon.
Although Expedia is a dominant force in the online travel booking space, Khosrowshahi is almost certainly a less-recognizable name than Meg Whitman of HP (NYSE:HPE) and Jeff Immelt of (NYSE:GE) —two candidates rumored to be top choices for Uber.
Nevertheless, Khosrowshahi has been at the helm of Expedia, which was originally started as a subsidiary of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), since its spinoff from IAC (IAC) in 2005. Since then, the company’s total revenues have jumped from just $2.1 billion to the massive $8.7 billion figure recorded last year.
Over the past decade, Expedia shares have returned more than 150%, significantly outpacing the S&P 500’s roughly 50% gain over that time. After a series of aggressive M&A deals, EXPE has really taken off and is up more than 31% year-to-date (also read: Uber Picks Dara Khosrowshahi: A Look At Expedia's Performance Under Its CEO).
Indeed, Khosrowshahi has helped Expedia scoop up HomeAway ($3.9 billion), Travelocity ($280 million), Orbitz ($1.6 billion), Wotif ($657 million), and Trivago ($564 million)—all in just the past four years.
As of right now, Expedia is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) and sports an “A” grade for Growth in our Style Scores system.
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