Investment deal boosts priceline.com by $50m

NEWS Hutchison and Cheung Kong (Holdings) have bought 24 million shares of priceline.com common stock for $50m, or $2.10 per share. The companies are also set to purchase 11.3 million priceline.com shares from departed founder Jay Walker for approximately $24m. Hutchison, one of Asia's largest companies with a market capitalisation of $53bn, and priceline.com already have an alliance in place to take the name-your-price business concept to Asian consumers. Despite the troubles priceline.com has experienced, which include the loss of its founder and its influential CFO, group managing director of Hutchison, Canning Fok, is very optimistic about the company's future. He said in a statement to investors: "We are impressed with the proven strength of priceline.com's business model, and the tremendous brand recognition that it has built since its inception only three years ago." Results out yesterday from priceline.com show that on revenues of £228m. The company turned in a net loss of $25m, up from £9.9m in the same period of the previous year.