Word: diller
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Danziger's company and others are preparing for battle. ZipRealty and HouseValues, another online firm, each raised tens of millions of dollars late last year selling initial shares of stock to the public--in part to fund a marketing blitz. LendingTree was sold to Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp in 2003, giving it deep pockets to jump-start its real estate ambitions. In just a year, LendingTree has gone from zero listings to more than a million. Foxtons, which is owned by London's biggest real estate firm, will relaunch its U.S. business this month with a marketing push...
...anyway. But Diller's firm owns LendingTree, which is wedging into the residential real estate market dominated by Century 21, Coldwell Banker and ERA, all Cendant brands. LendingTree is a fledgling player, generating $160 million in revenue last year compared with Cendant's $6.7 billion from real estate businesses. But that could become a battlefront down the road. Already, 70% of home buyers begin their search online. This year, for the first time, online listings will generate more home-buyer leads than classifieds...
...upstart with $5.4 billion in annual revenue, increasingly is focused on online commerce--and its travel portion generates 31% of revenue and 61% of operating profit. IAC also owns LendingTree, dating service Match.com local online resource CitySearch and the largely offline cash generators Ticketmaster and Home Shopping Network (HSN). Diller's strategy: use the cash from Ticketmaster and HSN to promote his online ambitions, and be there as consumers migrate from all manner of traditional services to the Web. "We fundamentally believe that more and more things are going online," Diller says. "We are experts in bringing businesses online...
Right now Diller's focus is on travel, and it's easy to see why. The overall industry is growing less than 5% a year, but the online component is taking share swiftly and growing more than 20% a year. This year 1 in 3 U.S. travelers will book online, up from 15% in 2002 and 20% last year, says research firm PhoCusWright. "Henry (Silverman) was at a big disadvantage" before the Orbitz deal, says Larry Haverty, managing director at State Street Research. Now he not only can share in the industry's robust growth but also use Orbitz...
While online services may get better with Silverman and Diller driving the industry, don't look for a price war that would make travel a lot less expensive. "They will compete intelligently," says Haverty. "Price cutting is not how you get Wall Street to give you" a higher stock price. IAC shares have lagged as investors at first puzzled over Diller's plan and then were disappointed with financial results that fell short of big expectations. Cendant has performed better. But some investors haven't forgotten a disastrous acquisition and accounting scandal six years...