Expedia - CarTrawler

MN-90022

Expedia Group, Inc. (**Expedia**) proposes to acquire the entire issued share capital of Ballast Group Holdings Ltd (trading as **CarTrawler**). Expedia operates online travel agency (**OTA**) brands, including Expedia.com, Hotels.com, and Vrbo, and is the majority owner of trivago, which is principally a hotel meta-search site. Expedia is primarily active in the supply of online booking intermediation services on a standalone and package basis for hotel rooms, flights, car rental, activities and experiences, cruises and alternative accommodations to consumers. In addition to its consumer-facing (**B2C**) operations, Expedia also provides business-to business (**B2B**) intermediation distribution solutions, which enable a wide range of travel and non-travel partners (including airlines, offline travel agents, online retailers, corporate travel management, financial institutions, and other distributors of travel booking services) to utilise Expedia's technology to access and distribute travel products, including car rental services. CarTrawler is a global provider of distribution solutions for car rental, ground transportation and travel-related insurance. CarTrawler primarily offers B2B solutions that enable third-party travel partners, such as airlines, OTAs, tour operators and other travel distributors, to offer car rental services through their own B2C customer interfaces. CarTrawler's "Connect" platform is a proprietary B2B technology platform that supports end to-end booking, availability and pricing aggregation, payments, and ancillary travel insurance products. The platform is integrated into partners' existing booking flows via API, allowing its business customers (e.g. airlines, OTAs, etc.) to offer car rental products to end consumers. CarTrawler also operates two B2C brands, Holiday Autos and Angus Car Hire, which both supply online car rental comparison and reservation services.