That OpenTable Deal

Priceline Group Inc.'s investors may not be bothered that the $75 billion online travel company just wrote down its biggest acquisition ever. But not even a tech favorite like Priceline gets a free pass on a bad deal in this space. Gadfly reviewed the 2014 takeover of restaurant-booking service OpenTable Inc. and determined that the purchase is troubled, one of five ratings we assign past transactions.1479408259469

Back when Priceline offered to pay $2.6 billion for OpenTable -- a business that was generating less than $200 million in annual revenue -- it should have raised more eyebrows. Instead, as with most flashy tech deals, excitement took over and even lifted shares of other richly valued online services providers. It was exactly the kind of transaction that helped fuel the overheated M&A environment we still see to this day.