Home Sweet Home on Wall Street

One of the vacation properties available for rent at HomeAway.com

Image: HomeAway

After carefully managing costs in recent years and expanding their service offerings, HomeAway executives were rewarded with a warm IPO reception. Looks like someone deserves a vacation.

The Austin, Texas-based travel company raised $216 million in an IPO yesterday, selling 8 million shares to Wall Street firms and investors for $27 a pop. The shares began trading on the Nasdaq this morning under the ticker symbol AWAY, and are calling more than $37.

The initial selling price met the company’s loftiest expectations, as executives had previously announced plans to sell shares for anywhere between $24 and $27. The company is now valued at $3 billion.

HomeAway is the Web’s biggest vacation-rental site and, as noted in the regulatory filing, competes with travel sites like Expedia, Travelocity, and Airbnb. The site, which travelers can use for free, attracts about 9.5 million unique visitors every month and boasts 560,000 listings.

Market analysts attribute the cozy Wall Street reception to the company’s ability to control expenses while it recently expanded its travel-related services. In addition to its primary sources of revenue, subscription fees from property-owning members, the firm has added travel insurance, credit-card processing, and property damage insurance to its arsenal.

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