AltaRock Partners 13F: Scott Bradford and Mark Massey Value These Stocks

2. Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN)

In Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN), AltaRock held 72,413 shares worth $148.54 million at the end of the second quarter, which represented 21% of its portfolio value. Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) has managed to establish itself as the leader in online travel market as the company built a strong network of hotel properties and services. In turn, this leads to a strong network effect, as customers are drawn to its platforms that contain more offerings. Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) currently has around 600,000 hotel properties across its platforms, which include Booking.com, Kayak, OpenTable, and Momondo. The company controls around 30% of the online travel agencies (OTA) market, competing closely with Expedia, which has another 30%. Basically, these two companies have created a duopoly in the OTA market, which allows them both to sustain their competitive advantages for at least a couple of years. However, while competing with Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) would require a lot of capital, there are companies that have the capabilities to build similarly-strong networks, such as Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).

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