Liberty TripAdvisor Cheapens as Trading Begins: Chart of the Day

Shares of TripAdvisor Inc. (TRIP)s largest stockholder, spun off last week, are already getting cheaper by comparison with those of the online-travel agency.

The CHART OF THE DAY compares the share price of Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings Inc. (LTRPA), formerly a part of billionaire John Malones Liberty Interactive Corp. (LINTA), with the per-share value of its TripAdvisor holding.

Libertys gap widened to $6.31 a share yesterday from $5.74 on Aug. 28, its first day of post-spinoff trading, and $5.85 on Aug. 29, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The figures reflect its ownership of 31 million TripAdvisor shares and its 73.7 million post-spinoff shares outstanding.

The spread was $6.26 a share at the end of trading today.

Susquehanna Financial came up with a narrower spread -- about $2 a share -- through a comparison that used Libertys enterprise value, or market value plus debt after subtracting cash. The company borrowed $400 million before the separation and retained $50 million after paying a special dividend to Liberty Interactive.

Liberty TripAdvisor may ultimately exchange its stake for some of the companys assets, Joseph Stauff, a New York-based analyst at Susquehanna, wrote yesterday in a report. Any deal may come with a control premium of about 23 percent, he wrote.

TripAdvisor, based in Newton, Massachusetts, has two classes of common stock. Liberty TripAdvisor owns an entire class that has 10 votes per share, which allows the Englewood, Colorado-based company to have 57 percent of the voting rights and only 22 percent of its equity.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Wilson in New York at dwilson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chris Nagi at chrisnagi@bloomberg.net Michael P. Regan, Jeremy Herron

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Liberty TripAdvisor Cheapens as Trading Begins: Chart of the Day

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