Business Description
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BKNG | TRAVEL SERVICES | LUCAS OLDHAM I am recommending a BUY of Booking Holdings (BKNG) at the current share price of $2,242.61 with a target share price of $3,514.63, presenting 56.7% potential upside as of June, 18 2021. The primary reasoning behind my recommendation is; Booking’s strong and durable competitive advantages over the industry; their historically impressive financials; and their massive growth potential coming out the covid-19 pandemic. Booking Holdings is a globally diversified company with a lucrative business model. Financially, they are fundamentally sound, boasting steady pre-pandemic growth. And most importantly, they are poised to emerge gracefully from the overall depressed state of the travel industry caused by the covid-19 pandemic. BUSINESS DESCRIPTION Booking Holdings is an American travel technology company that owns and operates numerous worldwide travel fare aggregators and metasearch engines including Booking.com, Priceline.com, Agoda.com, Kayak.com, Cheapflights, Rentalcars.com, Momondo, and OpenTable. They are the world leader in online travel and related services, provided to customers and partners in over 220 countries and territories. The mission of Booking Holdings is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. The company was founded in 1997 by Jay S. Walker as Priceline.com Incorporated in Stamford, Connecticut. Through a series of growth and acquisitions Priceline.com became Booking Holdings in 2018. Currently based in Norwalk, Connecticut, Booking employs 20,300 people worldwide. Their shares trade at $2,242.61 as of June, 18 2021. Before their revenues were ravaged by the effects of the covid-19 pandemic, they brought in $15.07B in sales in 2019. With a market capitalization of $91.4B, they are the largest and most dominant traditional travel service in the industry. The current President, CEO, and Director, Glenn D. Fogel has been at the helm since 2017. Prior to his appointment, Fogel garnered 17 years of experience at Booking as Head of Strategy and Executive Vice President of Corporate Development. Business Segments Booking Holdings operates through their six primary consumer-facing brands; Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda.com, Rentalcars.com, KAYAK, and OpenTable. Each of these brands offers different services fully encompassing the consumer travel experience; accommodations, ground transportation, flights, restaurants, activities, and meta search. Figure 1 gives a brief look at their service offerings umbrella. Figure 2 shows an allocation of these services. Booking Holdings Umbrella Services by Brand World’s leading A leading brand A leading travel brand for booking for booking rental meta-search brand accommodations cars A leading brand for A leading brand North America’s online Asian market for dining leading discount accommodations reservations online travel brand Figure 1: Booking Holdings Umbrella Figure 2: Services by Brand As the world’s leading brand for booking online accommodation reservations, based on room nights booked, Booking.com has offered services for approximately 2,373,000 properties in over 220 countries and territories as of December 31, 2020. Most of Booking’s subsidiaries have a similar array of integrated services but are unique to location. Kayak provides an online price comparison service (often referred to as "meta-search") that allows consumers to easily search and compare travel itineraries and prices, including airline ticket, accommodation reservation and rental car reservation information, from hundreds of online travel platforms at once. 1 Business Model While there are six different windows of business, each service collects revenue in the same ways. The three revenue items that Booking Holdings recognizes are Agency Revenues, Merchant Revenues, and Advertising & Other Revenues. Figure 3 shows 2019 revenue breakdown. • Agency Revenues make up the bulk of Booking’s total revenue figure. These revenues are derived from 2019 Revenue Breakdown transactions in which Booking does not facilitate payments for services. As the primary driver of sales, agency revenues consist almost entirely of travel reservation commissions invoiced to service providers after travel is completed. • Merchant Revenues make up the second largest chunk of Booking’s total revenue figure, but are growing at a faster rate. These revenues are derived from transactions in which Booking facilitates the payment of services, generally at the time of booking. From a cash flow Figure 3: 2019 Revenue Breakdown perspective, since Booking gets money upfront and doesn’t relinquish it to the service provider until the time 3-YR Revenue Segment Growth Rates of stay, they are able to hold onto this cash for months, mostly for free, and can use it to invest and grow the business. These revenues are also more lucrative because Booking charges fees on top of already higher commissions. • Advertising & Other Revenues make up the smallest portion of Booking’s total revenue figure. These revenues are largely derived from Kayak’s referrals driven business and advertising placements. They are also comprised of revenues earned by OpenTable for restaurant reservation services and subscription fees. Figure 4: 3-YR Revenue Segment Growth Rates (’17-’19) Under CEO Glenn Fogel’s leadership, Booking Holdings is taking strides to grow their merchant revenues at rapid rates. The merchant business model is far more lucrative for Booking on a commission basis, and it also improves their cash flow situation, allowing them to invest more heavily into future projects. The agency model is great for cheap growth; it is what helped Booking reach the dominant market position that it has today. But the time to capitalize on their massive scale has come, as leadership takes them in a more value-productive direction. Figure 4 shows Booking’s growing focus on merchant revenues since Glenn Fogel became CEO in 2017. Business Growth Strategies Booking Holdings is aiming at growth strategies through three main avenues; expanding and solidifying a uniform payment platform, continuing to develop and integrate their current services into the “connected trip”, and capturing more U.S. market share. All of their growth strategies are centered around their move towards an increasingly merchant focused business model. Integrating a uniform payment platform can help Booking power the frictionless global marketplace that they seek to create. Booking is trying to alleviate the problem of foreign exchange complications and users not being able to pay how they want for travel. The current payment platform is catching on, but slowly. Only 22% of gross bookings in 2020 were processed on Booking’s integrated platform. However, this is up from 15% in 2019, and the figure is expected to grow in the coming years. Implementing this platform will enable merchandising capabilities that Booking hasn’t had access to historically. Most importantly, it is foundational for the “connected trip” strategy. The “Connected Trip” is a seamless offering of multiple elements of travel, and creating it is Bookings long-term strategic goal. It will simplify and improve all aspects of the travel experience including: discovery, planning, booking, coordinating itineraries among travel service providers, automatic rescheduling/rebooking, etc. 2 Capturing a greater share of the U.S. market is an imperative growth strategy for Booking for numerous reasons. Firstly, Booking trails competitors Expedia and Airbnb in terms of U.S. market share. While the U.S. hotel market is not quite as profitable for travel fare aggregators like Booking and Expedia when compared to the European market, mainly due to the dominance of hotel chains in the U.S., the potential for Booking to tap into the U.S. alternative accommodation market is promising. And this is what leadership is trying to do. In order to penetrate the market Booking will focus on product improvements, raising consumer awareness of this type of inventory, and supply acquisition. They are planning to work with professional property management partners to grow and acquire this supply of single-home properties. Additionally, as a result of the covid-19 pandemic and associated regulations there has been a shift in favor of domestic travel and alternative accommodations, a signal for Booking to enter into the U.S. space where they currently lack market share. To paint a picture of the growth potential; 41% of Airbnb’s revenue comes from its U.S. segment. That 41% is larger than the entire European market where Booking currently has a strong foothold. This implies that Booking has an opportunity to double their alternative accommodation business by penetrating into the U.S. Business Risk Factors Reliance on an industry bounce back: Booking has a heavy reliance on the overall travel industry getting back on its feet as soon as possible. If government regulations and social distancing sentiments continue to stifle the travel industry at large, it will take Booking longer to return to their pre-pandemic scale. More in “Industry Overview”. Competitors: Booking faces competition from all angles. Expedia is a their main direct competitor, and currently holds a majority U.S. market share. If Booking fails to expand more prominently into the U.S. and stagnates growth in other global markets, their overall industry market share dominance could be threatened. Airbnb is spearheading the rise of alternative accommodations, a market that Booking is also competing in. Google could continue its dive into successful reservation meta-search applications such as Google Flights. Their continued expansion into the space could take significant market share away from Booking. Lastly, many hotel chains, especially in the U.S., are developing and facilitating their own direct channels for travelers. If they can create enough consumer awareness and drive enough traffic to their own flagship sites, there would be no need for a majority of Bookings services. COVID-19 Effects on Finances: The adverse impacts of the covid-19 pandemic could distress liquidity, credit rating, and foreign exchange rates. The ensuing volatility in global markets has made access to capital less certain and more costly.