Gillian Tan, Columnist

TripAdvisor's Smoother Path to a Takeover

A tweak to its executive-severance plan may help clear the way to a sale, assuming there are buyers.

August 23, 2017 at 5:26 PM UTC

Gillian Tan is a senior reporter covering finance and alternative asset classes including real estate, infrastructure, private equity, private credit, venture capital and sports business. She previously wrote an opinion column for Bloomberg and was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. She is a qualified chartered accountant.

1503428611_313103556_1-8 — Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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TripAdvisor Inc. has been mentioned before as an acquisition target, but could it now be laying the groundwork for a takeover? Tweaks to its executive-severance plan suggest so.

The travel-site operator adopted a plan earlier this month that better remunerates key executives whose jobs may be jeopardized by a change-in-control event such as a merger or sale of the company. The change offers management more lucrative exit packages if they remain in place during the immediate period before or after a TripAdvisor deal is integrated, making them more likely to stay on once an agreement has been reached.1503508781413