The Internet holding company reported better-than-expected first-quarter revenues, but also disclosed a writedown of its declining browser-based software-applications business.
At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Glenn Schiffman, Chief Financial Officer of IAC. Joining me today is Joey Levin, Chairman of ANGI Homeservices and CEO of IAC; and Brandon Ridenour, CEO of ANGI Homeservices. Joey and I will also address any questions you may have on IAC's first quarter results.
American workers say they are letting both their families and employers down due to poor work-life balance, and value family-friendly benefits over flashier, costlier work perks, according to findings of the Work + Life Report, a research study released today by Care.com. Conducted as the first effects of the novel COVID-19 pandemic swept across America, the survey asked 1,254 full-time American workers how family-friendly benefits, like backup childcare, affect employee productivity, recruitment, retention, and attrition, as well as how they influence what brands or stores consumers favor.
(Bloomberg) -- In nearly three years at the helm of Uber Technologies Inc., Dara Khosrowshahi has focused mostly on cutting costs. Now he’s seeking a return to what defined his career before Uber: buying things.Uber is negotiating a potential acquisition of Grubhub Inc. as the coronavirus pandemic drives a surge in demand for food delivery, people familiar with the negotiations said. If a deal is reached, Grubhub, with a market value of $5.3 billion, would be the biggest Khosrowshahi has ever done.Khosrowshahi, 50, cultivated a reputation as an effective dealmaker when he ran Expedia Group Inc. for more than a decade. He completed 41 transactions there with a total value of $12.7 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. His tenure at the online travel giant was defined by a strategy he picked up as a top lieutenant to IAC/InterActiveCorp’s billionaire chairman, Barry Diller: roll up competitors, integrate them and reap the rewards of scale.The plan for Grubhub follows the same playbook. The companies anticipate there would be major cost savings by eliminating jobs seen as duplicative, a person familiar with the negotiations said. This form of corporate efficiency—embraced by investors based on the market’s reaction to the news this week—sparked a swift rebuke from some officials in the U.S., one of whom described the proposed merger as “pandemic profiteering.” Through a spokesman, Khosrowshahi declined to be interviewed.In the negotiations, Grubhub had been seeking a ratio of 2.15 Uber shares for each one of Grubhub’s, a person familiar with the talks said. The companies are now discussing a deal valuing Grubhub stock at 1.9 Uber shares, the Wall Street Journal reported.Khosrowshahi first developed an admiration for Diller in the 1990s while working as an analyst at the investment bank Allen & Co. Diller, a client of the firm, had made a hostile bid for Paramount Pictures. “I thought to myself, ‘That’s the guy I want to work for,’” Khosrowshahi told Bloomberg Businessweek in 2017. He joined in the dot-com boom and worked his way up through Diller’s portfolio of companies, becoming chief executive officer of Expedia in 2005.Expedia had already purchased Hotwire and Hotels.com before Khosrowshahi took over, and he accelerated the strategy. “Them rolling up a category is not exactly new,” said Stuart MacDonald, who was Expedia’s chief marketing officer at the time and is now a travel industry consultant. “Dara turbocharged it.”Khosrowshahi tried to balance his acquisitiveness with a thriftiness around the office. His desk at Expedia sat in an open-plan office on the 18th floor of a skyscraper in Bellevue, Washinton, overlooking Seattle. He chose not to rent the top floor because he thought it was too expensive, said Mark Okerstrom, who sat beside Khosrowshahi for seven years and worked with him on a series of high-profile deals. “He’s not one of those leaders that presides from an ivory tower,” Okerstrom said.Khosrowshahi’s 12-year tenure at Expedia was defined by an escalating battle with Booking Holdings Inc. Each tried to outflank the other by buying upstart brands, splicing them into their tech ecosystems and squeezing out incremental profits. Revenue at Expedia grew to $10.1 billion, from $2.1 billion, and the company’s share price rose nearly sevenfold while Khosrowshahi was in charge.His time there culminated with two big deals, one after the other. In 2015, Expedia paid $1.6 billion for Orbitz, swallowing the only serious rival besides Booking to secure a hold of the U.S. market. The Justice Department investigated the antitrust implications for six months and approved the deal. Then, months later, Expedia bought HomeAway for $3.9 billion, helping mount a defense against the latest upstart roiling the industry, Airbnb Inc.Neither acquisition went smoothly at first. Revenue took a hit in 2016, due partly to network outages from attempts at merging Orbitz’s systems with Expedia’s and to HomeAway’s runaway spending. “There were a lot of questions at first,” said Okerstrom, who took over as Expedia CEO in 2017 before he was ousted last December after clashing with the board over growth prospects. In hindsight, both deals are seen as largely successful for helping Expedia keep the voracious growth of Booking in check. Despite HomeAway’s costs, it became a core source of growth for the company.When Khosrowshahi wants to get serious at the negotiating table, he has a tell. His hand goes behind his neck, his elbow slides across the desk, and he hones in on the subject with a calming timbre. “He leans into the numbers, he leans into the issues, and he leans into you,” said Rob Greyber, who worked with Khosrowshahi at Expedia for about seven years managing the company’s often-fraught relationship with airlines. “In a deal, when there can be a lot of emotion going on, he can snap out of all that, which is a great asset.”In 2017, Khosrowshahi was selected as the unlikely candidate to replace Uber’s co-founder, Travis Kalanick, as CEO. Uber, just eight years old at the time, was already a global behemoth with a valuation far exceeding that of Expedia. Khosrowshahi’s main tasks were to heal a corporate culture that many employees had described as toxic and bring operational discipline. For the latter, he got to work selling assets and cutting costs.Uber sold operations in Russia and Southeast Asia for stakes in local ride-hailing companies in 2018. He used the same technique last year to offload Uber’s food business in India to Zomato, eliminating the most costly delivery market for the company. The cuts continued last week with the closure of food delivery in seven countries and the dismissal of 3,700 employees worldwide.Khosrowshahi has made purchases at Uber, too. In 2018, he acquired Jump, then a tiny startup renting electric bicycles. “Negotiations were directly with him,” said Vivek Ladsariya, a general partner at SineWave Ventures, an investor in Jump. Khosrowshahi sold the Jump business last week to Lime as part of an investment in the scooter-rental startup. In the Middle East, Uber bought ride-hailing company Careem for $3.1 billion, a deal that closed this year. Then Uber said last week it was cutting 31% of Careem’s staff.Profit margins are slim in food delivery. Consolidation could help Uber reduce costs and turn a profit. But buying a company the size of Grubhub is a new kind of challenge for Khosrowshahi. “He’s not going to rush into anything,” said Woody Marshall, a venture capitalist who has known Khosrowshahi since they were teenagers.(Updates with Uber-Grubhub negotiations in the fifth paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ:IAC) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has bounced 33% in the...
Top 1st-quarter trades of Ron Baron’s firm Continue reading...
Bluecrew, the technology platform that automatically matches job seekers with W2-protected hourly work nationwide, has announced the appointment of Stephen Avalone as CEO, effective immediately. Mr. Avalone will bring his decades of experience building and scaling products, teams and revenue at companies such as Amazon and Rakuten, along with his years of startup experience, to accelerate adoption of Bluecrew's nationwide job-matching marketplace and platform among top brands and employers.
IAC/Interactive (IAC) delivered earnings and revenue surprises of -95.00% and 3.05%, respectively, for the quarter ended March 2020. Do the numbers hold clues to what lies ahead for the stock?
Investors celebrated the online dating company’s ability to provide a way for people to date even while sheltering in place.
IAC (NASDAQ: IAC) posted its first quarter financial results and a letter to shareholders on the investor relations section of the company's website at ir.iac.com/financial-information/quarterly-results. As announced previously, ANGI Homeservices will host a conference call during which IAC executives will also participate to answer questions regarding IAC. The ANGI Homeservices conference call will be held on Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 8:30 a.m. ET. Participating in the ANGI Homeservices call will be Joey Levin, CEO of IAC and Chairman of ANGI Homeservices, Glenn H. Schiffman, Executive Vice President and CFO of IAC, and Brandon Ridenour, CEO of ANGI Homeservices.
IAC (Nasdaq: IAC), will attend the 15th Annual Virtual Needham Technology and Media Conference on Wednesday, May 20, 2020. Glenn Schiffman, Chief Financial Officer of IAC, will participate in a fireside chat at 2:30 p.m. ET. A live webcast will be available to the public at Needham Webcast https://cc.talkpoint.com/barc002/121119a_js/?entity=29_ISNNNF6and a replay of the webcast will be available at http://www.iac.com/Investors/ and http://ir.angihomeservices.com/presentations for 90 days following the conference.
Here's a sneak peek into how five e-commerce stocks might fare in their upcoming quarterly results, slated to release this week.
Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has affirmed Match Group, Inc.'s ("Match" or the "company") Ba2 Corporate Family Rating (CFR), Ba2-PD Probability of Default Rating (PDR), Ba1 ratings on the senior secured bank credit facilities and Ba3 ratings on the senior unsecured notes. Concurrently, Moody's assigned a Ba3 rating to the proposed $500 million senior unsecured notes.
RoboKiller, the app that eliminates spam calls, revealed a 35% decrease in spam calls since March in their "State of Robocalls During COVID-19" report. The worldwide shutdown is presumed to be the cause of the dramatic decline in spam calls.
Surge in users in these units partially offset a drop in demand in its homeservices platform ANGI, which reported quarterly revenue of $343.6 million, missing estimates of $345.8 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. IAC flagged last month that demand for ANGI's services had dropped considerably as people were shelving plans to renovate their houses amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Match Group, that forms nearly half of IAC's revenue, reported a 17% rise in revenue and said user engagement across its dating apps had surged as people look to make virtual connections amid the pandemic.
The COVID-19 outbreak has helped accelerate revenue growth for IAC/InterActiveCorp.’s Vimeo video-production unit but some of the media company’s other businesses have been hit harder by the pandemic.
Vimeo, an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IAC), will attend the virtual Cowen and Company Annual Technology Media and Telecom Conference on Wednesday, May 27, 2020. Anjali Sud, Chief Executive Officer of Vimeo, will present at 12:05 p.m. ET. A live webcast will be available to the public at http://wsw.com/webcast/cowen59/iac/ and a replay of the webcast will be available at http://www.iac.com/Investors/ for 90 days following the conference.
A look at the company's 1st-quarter results Continue reading...
During a talk with TheStreet, CFO Glenn Schiffman highlighted the positive and negative trends seen by IAC businesses such as Dotdash and ANGI Homeservices over the last two months.
The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 821 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F […]