The Fund established a starter position in Priceline Group (NASDAQ:PCLN) during the quarter. Priceline is an online travel agency that gathers lodging, airline, car rental and other travel-related inventory in a centralized, digital marketplace for convenient discovery and booking by travelers around the globe. Priceline’s strength lies internationally, particularly in Europe. Booking.com, its flagship platform, has built relationships with some 700,000 unique hotels and 800,000 vacation rental properties around the world, providing scale and brand focus that enables the company to acquire new customers more efficiently than peevrs. Priceline’s future growth rate is likely to slow as it increases in size, but we expect the business to continue to benefit as bookings shift from offline to more convenient online channels. We anticipate the inherent cyclicality of global travel providing periodic opportunities to build on our initial position.
From Weitz Investment Management's Value Fund fourth-quarter commentary.
