TripAdvisor Names Financial Leadership Before IPO (EXPE)

TripAdvisor is supposed to be the next spin-off IPO and it in theory has kept a phantom premium under Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) during the market carnage of the last quarter.  Today came news that TripAdvisor has appointed Julie M.B. Bradley as chief financial officer, effective immediately.  If a company has to have one officer behind a CEO before coming public, it is a CFO.

The company noted that this is a newly-created role.  She will oversee corporate finance, investor relations, accounting, corporate development, human resources and real estate.  She previously served as CFO of Art Technology Group (ATG) and she oversaw the acquisition of the company by Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL); and she was also vice president of finance at Akamai Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) and she also worked at Deloitte. Bradley is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a BA in Economics from Wheaton College.

TripAdvisor claims to be the world’s largest travel site which attracts more than 65 million unique monthly visitors over its 19 popular travel brands. The company also noted that its branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world with more than 50 million unique monthly visitors, 20 million members, and over 50 million reviews and opinions.

If you break out the TripAdvisor Media Group revenues in 2010, that came to about $486 million versus the total revenues of nearly $3.35 billion for the larger Expedia.

How the breakout comes on earnings will be reviewed closer to the TripAdvisor IPO.  On a revenue basis alone, TripAdvisor would account for nearly 15% of the Expedia revenue.

JON C. OGG