Darren Huston Interview on Acquiring Homeaway with Skift

Priceline Group CEO says his company didn’t get involved when HomeAway put itself up for sale because “we’re quite picky” and HomeAway’s model of allowing vacation rental owners to wait 24 hours before confirming a booking and charging travelers a booking fee “just didn’t fit us.”

Expedia Inc. announced that it would acquire HomeAway for $3.9 billion in cash and stock. Asked whether the Priceline Group got involved in that sales process, Darren Huston said: “No. Although we’ve talked to them for years. We were very much aware of it. We knew kind of how it was going. We did a little bit of thinking and said this isn’t the right thing for us. We’re quite picky.”