Less than a week after closing its new buyout fund on $1.5 billion, Great Hill Partners has some more good news. The firm has agreed to offload The Momondo Group, which operates price-comparison and booking services for travel and hotels, for $550 million to travel giant Priceline (NASDAQ: PCLN), which will incorporate Momondo into its KAYAK brand. The deal is expected to close later this year.
The sale comes a little more than two years after Great Hill first backed Momondo, providing an £80 million cash investment that valued the company at €132 million. Using current exchange rates, that works out to a 3.3x return, with Great Hill’s stake in the company now worth about £265 million.
Great Hill’s exit from Momondo comes amid a wider decrease in PE interest in the B2C media sector. Investors completed just 272 deals in the space last year, per the PitchBook Platform, down from 352 the year before and representing a single-year low dating back to 2009.
Article by PitchBook
