Booking Holdings books a loss while travel bookings grow

For its first quarterly report under its new name, Booking Holdings — the travel company formerly known as Priceline — racked up an unexpected loss thanks to a $1.3bn expense related to US tax reform.

Booking — which operates travel sites including Priceline and its new namesake Booking.com — said that revenue for the final three months of 2017 was $2.8bn, a hair over the $2.7bn that analysts surveyed by Factset had been expecting. Its net loss was $555m, or $11.41 a share, thanks to the tax reform expense.

Excluding special items, net income was $836m, an 18 per cent year-over-year increase, or $16.86 a share, edging out expectations for $701.5m in adjusted income, or $14.12 a share.

Glenn Fogel, the company’s chief executive, said:

“Booking Holdings finished 2017 with a strong fourth quarter, reporting year-over-year growth in room nights booked of 17% and Adjusted ebitda growth of 23%. We are pleased with the solid execution across all of our brands in 2017 as we moved ahead on important investments in the year while driving strong top-line growth.”

During the final quarter of 2017, Booking’s travel services, net of cancellations, grew 19 per cent from a year ago to $18bn. It is looking for total gross travel bookings to grow another 14.5 to 18.5 per cent year-on-year in the current quarter.

For the current quarter, Booking is looking for between 17.5 and 21.5 per cent year-over-year revenue growth, with net income between $445m-$465m, or $9.05-$9.45 a share. That’s slightly under the $9.67 a share earnings that Factset analysts were predicting.

Last year, Booking’s shares rose 18.5 per cent and are up another 10 per cent so far this year. Its shares rose more than 5 per cent in after-hours trading.