Booking Holdings 10-K 2014-12-31

10-K 1 pcln-20141231_10k.htm 10-K

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended: December 31, 2014

Commission File No.: 0-25581

The Priceline Group Inc.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (203) 299-8000

Securities Registered Pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities Registered Pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None.

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ý No o

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes o No ý

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ý No o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes ý No o

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ý

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer" and "smaller reporting company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act (Check one):

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes o No ý

The aggregate market value of common stock held by non-affiliates of The Priceline Group Inc. as of June 30, 2014 was approximately $62.8 billion based upon the closing price reported for such date on the NASDAQ Global Select Market. For purposes of this disclosure, shares of common stock held by executive officers and directors of The Priceline Group Inc. on June 30, 2014 have been excluded because such persons may be deemed to be affiliates of The Priceline Group Inc. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.

The number of outstanding shares of The Priceline Group Inc.’s common stock was 51,939,191 as of February 11, 2015.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

The information required by Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, to the extent not set forth in this Form 10-K, is incorporated herein by reference from The Priceline Group Inc.'s definitive proxy statement relating to the annual meeting of stockholders to be held on June 4, 2015, to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of The Priceline Group Inc.'s fiscal year ended December 31, 2014.

The Priceline Group Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K for the Year Ended December 31, 2014 Index

Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K and the documents incorporated herein by reference contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect our views regarding current expectations and projections about future events and conditions and are based on currently available information. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict, including the Risk Factors identified in Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report; therefore, actual results could differ materially from those expressed, implied or forecast in any such forward-looking statements.

Expressions of future goals and expectations and similar expressions, including "may," "will," "should," "could," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "intends," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," "targets," and "continue," reflecting something other than historical fact are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Our actual results could differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements for various reasons including the risks we face, which are more fully described in Part I, Item 1A, "Risk Factors." Unless required by law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. However, readers should carefully review the reports and documents we file or furnish from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC" or the "Commission"), particularly our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K.

PART I

We are a leading provider of online travel and travel related reservation and search services. Through our online travel agent ("OTA") services, we connect consumers wishing to make travel reservations with providers of travel services around the world. We offer consumers accommodation reservations (including hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, apartments, vacation rentals and other properties) through our Booking.com, priceline.com and agoda.com brands. Our priceline.com brand also offers consumers reservations for rental cars, airline tickets, vacation packages and cruises. We offer rental car reservations worldwide through rentalcars.com. We also allow consumers to easily compare airline ticket, hotel reservation and rental car reservation information from hundreds of travel websites at once through KAYAK. We recently acquired OpenTable, a leading provider of online restaurant reservations. We believe that the online restaurant reservation business is complementary to our online travel businesses, and that both OpenTable and our travel businesses will benefit from adding OpenTable to The Priceline Group. We refer to our company and all of our subsidiaries and brands, including Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, rentalcars.com and, as of July 24, 2014, OpenTable, collectively as "The Priceline Group," the "Company," "we," "our" or "us."

We launched our business in the United States in 1998 under the priceline.com brand and have since expanded our operations to include Booking.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, rentalcars.com and OpenTable, which are independently managed and operated brands. Our principal goal is to serve consumers and our travel service provider and restaurant partners with worldwide leadership in online reservation services. Our business is driven primarily by international results, which consist of the results of Booking.com, agoda.com and rentalcars.com and the results of the internationally based websites of KAYAK and, as of July 24, 2014, OpenTable (in each case regardless of where the consumer resides, where the consumer is physically located while making a reservation or the location of the travel service provider or restaurant). During the year ended December 31, 2014, our international business (the substantial majority of which is generated by Booking.com) represented approximately 87% of our gross bookings (an operating and statistical metric referring to the total dollar value, generally inclusive of all taxes and fees, of all travel services purchased by our customers), and approximately 94% of our consolidated operating income. A significant majority of our gross profit is earned in connection with facilitating accommodation reservations. See Note 18 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for more geographic information.

The Priceline Group Inc. was formed as a Delaware limited liability company in 1997 and was converted into a Delaware corporation in July 1998. On April 1, 2014, the Company changed its name from priceline.com Incorporated to The Priceline Group Inc. Our common stock is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "PCLN." Our principal executive offices are located at 800 Connecticut Avenue, Norwalk, Connecticut 06854.

The Priceline Group Business Model

We derive substantially all of our gross profit from the following sources:

Our priceline.com brand offers merchant Name Your Own Price® opaque travel services, which are recorded in revenue on a "gross" basis and have associated cost of revenue. All of our other services are recorded in revenue on a "net" basis and have no associated cost of revenue. Therefore, revenue increases and decreases are impacted by changes in the mix of our revenues between Name Your Own Price® travel services and other services. Gross profit reflects the commission or net margin earned for our retail, Name Your Own Price® and semi-opaque travel services and our advertising and other services. Consequently, gross profit is an important measure to evaluate growth in our business because, in contrast to our revenues, it is not affected by the different methods of recording revenue and cost of revenue between our Name Your Own Price® travel services and our other services.

For the year ended December 31, 2014, we had gross profit of approximately $7.6 billion comprised of "agency" gross profit, "merchant" gross profit, and "other" gross profit. Agency gross profit is derived from travel related transactions where we are not the merchant of record and where the prices of the travel services reserved through our websites are determined by third parties. Agency gross profit, which represented the substantial majority of our total gross profit in 2014, consists primarily of: (1) travel commissions earned from reservations at Booking.com, priceline.com and rentalcars.com; (2) GDS reservation booking fees related to certain of the agency services listed above; and (3) processing fees. Merchant gross profit is derived from transactions where we are the merchant of record and therefore charge the consumer's credit card for the travel services provided, and consists of: (1) transaction gross profit representing the amount charged to a consumer, less the amount charged to us by travel service providers in connection with (a) the accommodation reservations provided through our merchant accommodation reservation service at agoda.com and priceline.com and (b) the reservations provided through our merchant rental car service at rentalcars.com and Express Deals® service at priceline.com; (2) transaction gross profit representing revenue charged to a consumer less the cost of revenue amount charged to us by travel service providers in connection with the reservations provided through our Name Your Own Price® and vacation package reservation services; (3) processing fees charged in connection with our priceline.com merchant reservation services; and (4) ancillary fees, including GDS reservation booking fees related to certain of the services listed above. Advertising and other revenues are derived primarily from (1) revenues earned by KAYAK for sending referrals to OTAs and travel service providers; (2) advertising placements on KAYAK's websites and mobile apps; (3) reservation revenues earned by OpenTable (a fee for each restaurant guest seated through OpenTable's online reservation service); and (4) subscription fees earned by OpenTable for reservation management services. Revenues from KAYAK are net of intercompany revenues earned from other Priceline Group brands. See Note 2 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for more information.

The Priceline Group Strategy

The online travel category has continued to experience significant worldwide growth as consumer purchasing shifts from traditional off-line channels to interactive online channels, including mobile channels. We are the leader in the worldwide online accommodation reservation market based on room nights booked. Our strategy is to continue to participate broadly in online travel growth by expanding our service offerings and markets. In particular, we aim to be the world leader in online travel and travel related services by (a) providing consumers with the best experience through relentless execution and constant innovation, (b) partnering with travel service providers and restaurants to our mutual benefit, (c) operating entrepreneurial, independent brands that share best practices, and (d) investing in profitable and sustainable growth.

constantly innovating our websites and mobile offerings to ensure that we are meeting the needs of online consumers while aiming to exceed their expectations.

Service Offerings

Through our OTA services, we connect consumers wishing to make travel reservations with providers of travel services around the world. We offer consumers accommodation reservations (including hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, apartments, vacation rentals and other properties) through our Booking.com, priceline.com and agoda.com brands. Our priceline.com brand also offers consumers reservations for rental cars, airline tickets, vacation packages and cruises. We offer rental car reservations worldwide through rentalcars.com. We also allow consumers to easily compare airline ticket, hotel reservation and rental car reservation information from hundreds of travel websites at once through KAYAK. Through OpenTable, we offer restaurant reservation services to consumers and reservation management services to restaurants.

Booking.com. Booking.com is the world's leading brand for booking online accommodation reservations with operations worldwide and headquarters in the Netherlands. As of February 13, 2015, Booking.com offered accommodation reservation services for more than 600,000 properties in over 200 countries and territories on its various websites and in 42 languages, which includes over 245,000 vacation rental properties (updated property counts are available on the Booking.com website). Vacation rentals generally consist of, among others, properties categorized as single-unit and multi-unit villas, apartments, "aparthotels" (which are apartments with a front desk and cleaning service) and chalets and are generally self-catered (i.e., include a kitchen), directly bookable properties. Accommodation providers participate in Booking.com, which operates under an agency model, by filing rates and information about the property in Booking.com's proprietary extranet. In addition, Booking.com has begun to offer website and other marketing services to accommodation providers as part of its BookingSuite initiative.

Priceline.com. Priceline.com offers online travel reservation services primarily in the United States and is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut. Through priceline.com, we offer consumers hotel, rental car and airline ticket reservations services, as well as vacation packages and cruises. Priceline.com is a leader in the "opaque" travel reservation business through its pioneering Name Your Own Price® and Express Deals® hotel, rental car and airline reservation services. We describe our Name Your Own Price® and Express Deals® travel services as "opaque" because certain elements of the service, including the identity of the travel service provider, are not disclosed to the consumer prior to making a reservation. Reservations made through priceline.com's opaque services are subject to various restrictions, depending on the type of reservation, such as being nonrefundable, not being eligible for frequent flyer or award program points and, in the case of airline tickets, requiring flexibility with respect to travel times and stops. We believe that the combination of priceline.com's retail and opaque models allows it to provide a broad array of options to value-conscious consumers.

Agoda.com. Agoda.com is a leading online accommodation reservation service catering primarily to consumers in the Asia-Pacific region, with headquarters in Singapore and operations in Bangkok, Thailand and throughout the region. Accommodation providers participate in agoda.com, which operates primarily under a merchant model, by filing rates and information about the property in agoda.com's proprietary extranet.

Rentalcars.com. Rentalcars.com is a leading worldwide online rental car reservation service and is headquartered in Manchester, England. Rentalcars.com offers a primarily merchant, online retail and opaque rental car reservation service allowing consumers to make rental car reservations in more than 28,000 locations throughout the world, with customer support provided in 40 languages. Customers using rentalcars.com can book a full range of vehicles online through rentalcars.com's website or mobile app, or they can reserve their cars by phone.

KAYAK. KAYAK, headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, provides an online price comparison service (often referred to as "meta-search") that allows consumers to easily search and compare travel itineraries and prices, including airline ticket, accommodation reservation and rental car reservation information, from hundreds of travel websites at once. KAYAK derives revenues from advertising placements on its websites and mobile apps and from sending referrals to travel service providers and OTAs. KAYAK currently does business primarily in the United States, though it intends to continue to invest in expanding its international offerings.

OpenTable. In July 2014 we acquired OpenTable, a leading brand for booking online restaurant reservations. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, OpenTable provides online restaurant reservation services to consumers and reservation management services to restaurants. OpenTable does business primarily in the United States, though it intends to continue to invest in expanding its international offerings.

Marketing and Brand Awareness

Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, rentalcars.com and OpenTable have established widely used and recognized e-commerce brands through aggressive marketing and promotion campaigns. As a result, both our online and offline advertising expense has increased significantly in recent years, a trend we expect to continue. During 2014, our total online advertising expense was approximately $2.4 billion, a substantial portion of which was spent internationally through Internet search engines (primarily Google), meta-search and travel research services and affiliate marketing. We also invested $231 million in offline advertising. We intend to continue a strategy of aggressively promoting brand awareness, primarily through online means although we also intend to increase our offline advertising efforts, including by expanding offline campaigns into additional markets. For example, building on its first offline advertising campaign, which it launched in the United States in 2013, Booking.com has begun offline advertising campaigns in other markets, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany. We recognize a substantial majority of online advertising expense as incurred at the time a reservation is booked, but recognize most of our gross profit when the consumer's travel or dining experience is completed. As a result, online advertising expense may not be recognized in the same period as the associated gross profit.

Online advertising efficiency, expressed as online advertising as a percentage of gross profit, is impacted by a number of factors that are subject to variability and that are, in some cases, outside of our control, including average daily rates ("ADRs"), costs per click, cancellation rates, foreign exchange rates, our ability to convert paid traffic to booking customers and the extent to which consumers come directly to our websites or mobile apps for bookings. From 2011 to 2013 our online advertising grew faster than our gross profit due to (1) year-over-year declines in online advertising returns on investment ("ROIs") and (2) brand mix within The Priceline Group as our international brands grew faster than our U.S. brands and spent a higher percentage of gross profit on online advertising. In 2014, these trends continued, but were more than offset by the inclusion of KAYAK and OpenTable because they spend a lower percentage of gross profit on online advertising than our other

brands. Also, our consolidated results exclude intercompany advertising by our brands on KAYAK since our acquisition of KAYAK in May 2013.

Competition

We compete with both online and traditional travel reservation services. The market for the travel reservation services we offer is intensely competitive, and current and new competitors can launch new services at a relatively low cost. Some of our current and potential competitors, such as Google, Apple, Alibaba, Amazon and Facebook, have access to significantly greater and more diversified resources than we do, and they may be able to leverage other aspects of their businesses (e.g., search or mobile device businesses) to enable them to compete more effectively with us. For example, Google has entered various aspects of the online travel market through its acquisition in 2011 of ITA Software, Inc., a major flight information software company, its hotel meta-search service known as "Hotel Finder" and its license of hotel-booking software from Room 77.

We currently, or potentially may in the future, compete with a variety of companies, including:

TripAdvisor, a leading travel research and review website, Google, the world's largest search engine, and other large, established companies with substantial resources and expertise in developing online commerce and facilitating Internet traffic have launched meta-search services and may create additional inroads into online travel, both in the United States and internationally. Meta-search services leverage their search technology to aggregate travel search results for the consumer's specific itinerary across travel service provider (e.g., accommodations, rental car companies or airlines), OTA and other travel websites and, in many instances, compete directly with us for customers. Meta-search services intend to appeal to consumers by showing broader travel search results than may be available through OTAs or other travel websites, which could lead to travel service providers or others gaining a larger share of search traffic. TripAdvisor has begun supporting its meta-search service with offline advertising, and trivago, a leading meta-search service in Europe, has been aggressively advertising in the United States since 2013. Google offers "Hotel Finder", a meta-search service that Google has at times placed at or near the top of its hotel-related search results. Through our KAYAK meta-search service, we compete directly with other meta-search services. KAYAK depends on access to information related to travel service pricing, schedules, availability and other related information from OTAs and travel service providers.

Consumers may favor travel services offered by meta-search websites or search companies over OTAs, which could reduce traffic to our travel reservation websites, increase consumer awareness of our competitors' brands and websites and

increase our advertising and other customer acquisition costs. To the extent any such consumer behavior leads to growth in our KAYAK meta-search business, such growth may not result in sufficient increases in profits from our KAYAK meta-search business to offset any related decrease in profits experienced by our OTA brands. Further, meta-search services may evolve into more traditional OTAs by offering consumers the ability to make travel reservations directly through their websites. For example, TripAdvisor facilitates hotel reservations on its transactional websites Tingo and Jetsetter and now allows consumers to make a reservation while staying on TripAdvisor through its "Instant Booking" offering. We currently do not participate in "Instant Booking" and therefore risk losing share of reservations sourced through TripAdvisor. Other meta-search providers may also offer direct booking services with travel service providers, which may lead to more consumers booking directly with a travel service provider rather than an OTA. To the extent consumers book travel services through a meta-search website or directly with a travel service provider after visiting a meta-search website or meta-search utility on a traditional search engine without using an OTA like us, or if meta-search services limit our participation within their search results, we may need to increase our advertising or other customer acquisition costs to maintain or grow our reservation bookings and our business, gross bookings and results of operations could be adversely affected.

As a result of our acquisition of OpenTable, we now compete or may in the future compete with other restaurant reservation providers, such as LaFourchette, a European restaurant reservation business owned by TripAdvisor, and Yelp's SeatMe service.

Travel service providers, including multi-national hotel chains, rental car companies and airlines with which we conduct business, compete with us in online channels to drive consumers to their own websites in lieu of third-party distributors like us. Travel service providers that sell on their own websites may charge lower prices and, in some instances, offer advantages such as loyalty points or special discounts to members of closed user groups (such as loyalty program participants or customers with registered accounts), any of which could make their offerings more attractive to consumers than our services. Discounting may increase as competition authorities seek to allow increased pricing flexibility among providers of travel service reservations. We may need to offer similar advantages to maintain or grow our reservation bookings, which could adversely impact our profitability.

Widespread adoption of mobile devices, such as the iPhone, Android-enabled smart phones and tablets such as the iPad, coupled with the improved web browsing functionality and development of thousands of useful "apps" available on these devices, is driving substantial online traffic and commerce to mobile platforms. We have experienced a significant shift of business to mobile platforms and our advertising partners are also seeing a rapid shift of traffic to mobile platforms. Our major competitors and certain new market entrants are offering mobile applications for travel products and other functionality, including proprietary last-minute discounts for accommodation reservations. Advertising and distribution opportunities may be more limited on mobile devices given their smaller screen sizes. The gross profit earned on a mobile transaction may be less than a typical desktop transaction due to different consumer purchasing patterns. For example, accommodation reservations made on a mobile device typically are for shorter lengths of stay and are not made as far in advance. Further, given the device sizes and technical limitations of tablets and smart phones, mobile consumers may not be willing to download multiple apps from multiple companies providing a similar service and instead prefer to use one or a limited number of apps for their mobile travel and restaurant research and reservation activity. As a result, the consumer experience with mobile apps as well as brand recognition and loyalty are likely to become increasingly important. Our mobile offerings have received strong reviews and are driving a material and increasing share of our business. We believe that mobile bookings present an opportunity for growth and are necessary to maintain and grow our business as consumers increasingly turn to mobile devices instead of a personal computer. If we are unable to continue to rapidly innovate and create new, user-friendly and differentiated mobile offerings and efficiently and effectively advertise and distribute on these platforms, or if our mobile offerings are not used by consumers, we could lose market share to existing competitors or new entrants and our future growth and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Apple, Inc., one of the most innovative and successful companies in the world and producer of, among other things, the iPhone and iPad, obtained a patent for "iTravel," a mobile app that would allow a traveler to check in for a travel reservation. In addition, Apple's iPhone operating system includes "Passbook," a virtual wallet app that holds tickets, boarding passes, coupons and gift cards, and along with iTravel, may be indicative of Apple's intent to enter the travel reservations business in some capacity. Apple has substantial market share in the smart phone category and controls integration of offerings, including travel services, into its mobile operating system. Apple also has more experience producing and developing mobile apps and has access to greater resources than we have. Apple may use or expand iTravel, Passbook, Siri (Apple's voice recognition "concierge" service), Apple Pay (Apple's new mobile payment system) or another mobile app or functionality as a means of entering the travel reservations marketplace. Similarly, Google's Android operating system is the leading smart phone operating system in the world. As a result, Google could leverage its Android operating system to give its travel services a competitive advantage, either technically or with prominence on its Google Play app store or within its mobile

search results. To the extent Apple or Google use their mobile operating systems or app distribution channels to favor their own travel service offerings, our business could be harmed.

There has been a proliferation of new channels through which accommodation providers can offer reservations. For example, companies such as HomeAway and Airbnb offer services focused on providing vacation rental property owners, particularly individuals, an online place to list their accommodations where travelers can search and book such properties. Companies such as HotelTonight, Tingo and Hipmunk have developed new and differentiated offerings that endeavor to provide savings on accommodation reservations to consumers and that compete directly with us. Further, meta-search services may lower the cost for new companies to enter the market by providing a distribution channel without the cost of promoting the new entrant's brand to drive consumers directly to its website. If any of these services are successful in attracting consumers who would otherwise use our services, our business and results of operations would be harmed.

Competition in U.S. online travel remains intense and online travel companies are creating new promotions and consumer value features in an effort to gain competitive advantages. In particular, the competition to provide "opaque" accommodation reservation services to consumers, an area in which our priceline.com business has been a leader, has become more intense. For example, Expedia makes opaque accommodation room reservations available on its principal website under the name "Expedia Unpublished Rates" and has, we believe, supported this initiative with steeper discounts through lower margins. We believe these offerings, in particular "Expedia Unpublished Rates," have adversely impacted the market share and year-over-year growth rate of priceline.com's Name Your Own Price® opaque hotel reservation service, which has been experiencing a decline in room night reservations since 2011. These and other competitors could also launch opaque rental car services, which could negatively impact priceline.com's Name Your Own Price® and Express Deals® opaque rental car reservation services. As a result of this increased competition, our share of the discount accommodation reservation market in the United States could further decrease, which would harm our business and results of operations.

Operations and Technology

Our business is supported by multiple systems platforms, which were designed with an emphasis on scalability, performance and reliability. The platforms are largely independent among Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, rentalcars.com and OpenTable. The software platforms and architecture use a variety of tools within each corporate implementation, including server-side Java, C++, ASP, .Net, Perl, PHP, JavaScript and SQL scripts integrated with Oracle, MySQL, MongoDB, Cassandra and Microsoft SQL-server database systems. These internal platforms were designed to include open application protocol interfaces that can provide connectivity to vendors in the industries in which we operate. These include large global systems, such as accommodation room, airline ticket and rental car reservation systems and financial service providers, as well as individual accommodation service providers, such as individual hotels. Our applications utilize digital certificates to help us conduct secure communications and transactions, as appropriate.

The systems infrastructure and web and database servers of our worldwide operations are primarily hosted in England, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Switzerland and five locations in the United States, each of which provides network connectivity, networking infrastructure, UPS conditioned power and 24-hour monitoring and engineering support typical of hosted data centers. All data center facilities have a continuous power supply system, generators, redundant servers and multiple back-up systems. If one hosting facility were inaccessible, for any reason, we would need to divert traffic to another hosting facility, which may lead to a disruption to our services, foregone transactions and revenue and consumer complaints.

Customer service for our international business is provided primarily through in-house call centers. We outsource most of the call center and customer service functions for our U.S. businesses.

Intellectual Property

Over time and through acquisitions, we have assembled a portfolio of patents, trademarks, service marks, copyrights, domain names, and trade secrets covering our services. We regard the protection of our intellectual property as critical to our success. We protect our intellectual property rights by relying on national, federal, state and common law rights in the United States and internationally, as well as a variety of administrative procedures, regulations, conventions and treaties. We also rely on contractual restrictions to protect our proprietary rights in our services. We enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with employees and contractors and nondisclosure agreements with parties with whom we conduct business in order to limit access to and disclosure of our proprietary information.

We pursue the registration of our domain names, trademarks and service marks in the United States and internationally. We currently hold numerous issued U.S. and international patents and pending U.S. and international patent applications. We file additional patent applications on new inventions, as we deem appropriate. Effective trademark,

copyright, patent, domain name, trade dress and trade secret protection is expensive to maintain and may require litigation. As we continue to expand internationally, protecting our intellectual property rights and other proprietary rights involves an increasing number of jurisdictions, a process that is expensive and time consuming and may not be successful in every location. See "Risk Factors - We face risks related to our intellectual property."

Governmental Regulation

The services we provide are subject to various laws and regulations. For example, our travel services are subject to laws governing the offer and/or sale of travel services as well as laws requiring us to register as a "seller of travel" in certain jurisdictions. In addition, our services may be subject to various taxing regulations. See "Risk Factors - We may have exposure to additional tax liabilities," "Risk Factors - Our financial results will likely be materially impacted by payment of income taxes in the future" and "Risk Factors - Adverse application of state and local tax laws could have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations."

We are subject to laws that require protection of user privacy and user data. In our processing of reservations, we receive and store a large volume of personally identifiable data in the United States, Europe and Asia. This data is increasingly subject to laws and regulations in numerous jurisdictions around the world, including the Commission of the European Union through its Data Protection Directive and variations and implementations of that directive in the member states of the European Union. Such government action is typically intended to protect the privacy of personal data that is collected, processed and transmitted in or from the governing jurisdiction. See "Risk Factors - Our processing, storage, use and disclosure of personal data exposes us to risks of internal or external security breaches and could give rise to liabilities" and "Risk Factors - 'Cookie' laws could negatively impact the way we do business."

We are also subject to anti-trust and competition laws, and the competition authorities in various jurisdictions have begun investigations into competitive practices within the online travel industry, including with respect to our business. See "Risk Factors - As the size of our business grows, we may become increasingly subject to the scrutiny of anti-trust and competition regulators."

In addition, our strategy involves rapid geographic expansion around the world, including in Asia, South America and elsewhere, many of which regions and countries have different legislation, regulatory environments and tax laws. Compliance with legal, regulatory and tax requirements around the world places demands on our time and resources, and we may nonetheless experience unforeseen and potentially adverse legal, regulatory or tax consequences, which may have an adverse effect on our business. See "Risk Factors - Regulatory and legal requirements and uncertainties could harm our business."

Seasonality

A meaningful amount of gross bookings are generated early in the year, as customers plan and reserve their spring and summer vacations in Europe and North America. From a cost perspective, we expense the substantial majority of our advertising activities as the expense is incurred, which is typically in the quarter in which reservations are booked. However, we generally do not recognize associated revenue until future quarters when the travel occurs. As a result, we typically experience our highest levels of profitability in the second and third quarters of the year, which is when we experience the highest levels of accommodation checkouts for the year for our North American and European businesses.

In addition, the date on which certain holidays fall can have an impact on our quarterly results. For example, in 2013 our second quarter year-over-year growth rates in revenue, gross profit, operating income and operating margins were adversely affected by Easter falling in the first quarter instead of the second quarter, as it did in 2012. Conversely, our second quarter 2014 year-over-year growth rates in revenue, gross profit, operating income and operating margins were favorably impacted by Easter falling in the second quarter instead of the first quarter, as it did in 2013.

The impact of seasonality can be exaggerated in the short-term by the gross bookings growth rate of the business. For example, in periods where our growth rate substantially decelerates, our operating margins typically benefit from relatively less variable advertising expense. In addition, gross profit growth is typically less impacted in the near term due to the benefit of revenue related to reservations booked in previous quarters.

We experience the highest levels of booking and travel consumption for our Asia-Pacific and South American businesses in the first and fourth quarters. Therefore, if these businesses continue to grow faster than our North American and European businesses, our operating results for the first and fourth quarters of the year may become more significant over time as a percentage of full year operating results.

Employees

As of December 31, 2014, we employed approximately 12,700 employees, of which approximately 2,800 are based in the United States and approximately 9,900 are based outside the United States. We also retain independent contractors to support our customer service, website content translation and system support functions.

We have never had a work stoppage and our employees are not represented by any collective bargaining unit. We consider our relations with our employees to be good. Our future success will depend, in part, on our ability to continue to attract, integrate, retain and motivate highly qualified technical and managerial personnel, for whom competition is intense. See "Risk Factors - We rely on the performance of highly skilled personnel and, if we are unable to retain or motivate key personnel or hire, retain and motivate qualified personnel, our business would be harmed."

The Priceline Group Websites

We maintain websites with the addresses www.pricelinegroup.com, www.booking.com, www.priceline.com, www.kayak.com, www.agoda.com, www.rentalcars.com and www.opentable.com, among others. We are not including the information contained on our websites as a part of, or incorporating it by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We make available free of charge through the www.pricelinegroup.com website our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to these reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish such material to, the SEC. These reports and other information are also available, free of charge, at www.sec.gov. Alternatively, the public may read and copy any materials we file with the SEC at the SEC's Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549. Information on the operation of the Public Reference Room may be obtained by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. In addition, the The Priceline Group Inc. Code of Conduct is available through the www.pricelinegroup.com website and any amendments to or waivers from the Code of Conduct will be disclosed on that website.

The following risk factors and other information included in this Annual Report should be carefully considered. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe are immaterial may also impair our business, results of operations or financial condition. If any of the following risks occur, our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows could be materially adversely affected.

Declines or disruptions in the travel industry could adversely affect our business and financial performance.

Our financial results and prospects are significantly dependent upon the sale of travel services, particularly leisure travel. Travel, including accommodation (including hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, apartments, vacation rentals and other properties), rental car and airline ticket reservations, is dependent on discretionary spending levels. As a result, sales of travel services tend to decline during general economic downturns and recessions when consumers engage in less discretionary spending, are concerned about unemployment or inflation, have reduced access to credit or experience other concerns or effects that reduce their ability or willingness to travel. For example, the recent worldwide recession led to a weakening in the fundamental demand for our travel reservation services and an increase in the number of consumers who canceled existing travel reservations with us. Also during the recession, the accommodation industry experienced a significant decrease in occupancy rates and average daily rates ("ADRs"). While lower occupancy rates have historically resulted in accommodation providers increasing their distribution of accommodation reservations through third-party intermediaries such as us, our remuneration for accommodation reservation transactions changes proportionately with price, and therefore, lower ADRs generally have a negative effect on our accommodation reservation business and a negative effect on our gross profit. Further, during periods of higher occupancy rates, accommodation providers may decrease their distribution of accommodation reservations through third-party intermediaries like us, in particular through our discount services such as priceline.com's Name Your Own Price® and Express Deals®.

Many governments around the world, including the U.S. government and certain European governments, are operating at large financial deficits, resulting in high levels of sovereign debt in such countries. Greece, Ireland, Portugal and certain other European Union countries with high levels of sovereign debt at times have had difficulty refinancing their debt. Failure to reach political consensus regarding workable solutions to these issues has resulted in a high level of uncertainty regarding the future economic outlook. This uncertainty, as well as concern over governmental austerity measures including higher taxes and reduced government spending, could impair consumer spending and adversely affect travel demand. Greece's newly elected government, which campaigned against austerity measures, may not be able to reach an acceptable solution to the country's debt crisis with the European Union. This may increase the likelihood that Greece, and in turn other countries, could exit the European Union, which could lead to added economic uncertainty and further devaluation or eventual abandonment of the Euro common currency. At times, we have experienced volatility in transaction growth rates and weaker trends in hotel ADRs across many regions of the world, particularly in those European countries that appear to be most affected by economic uncertainties. We believe that these business trends are likely impacted by weak economic conditions and sovereign debt concerns. Disruptions in the economies of such countries could cause, contribute to or be indicative of deteriorating macro-economic conditions.

The uncertainty of macro-economic factors and their impact on consumer behavior, which may differ across regions, makes it more difficult to forecast industry and consumer trends and the timing and degree of their impact on our markets and business, which in turn could adversely affect our ability to effectively manage our business and adversely affect our results of operations.

In addition, other unforeseen events beyond our control, such as oil prices, terrorist attacks, unusual weather patterns, natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods and volcanic eruptions, travel related health concerns including pandemics and epidemics such as Ebola, Influenza H1N1, avian bird flu and SARS, political instability, regional hostilities, imposition of taxes or surcharges by regulatory authorities or travel related accidents, can disrupt travel or otherwise result in declines in travel demand. Because these events or concerns are largely unpredictable, they can dramatically and suddenly affect travel behavior by consumers, and therefore demand for our services, which can adversely affect our business and results of operations. For example, in late 2012 Hurricane Sandy disrupted travel in the northeastern United States. In early 2011, Japan was struck by a major earthquake, tsunami and nuclear emergency. In October 2011, severe flooding in Thailand, a key market for our agoda.com business and the Asian business of Booking.com, negatively impacted booking volumes and cancellation rates in that market. In addition, Thailand recently experienced disruptive civil unrest, which negatively impacted booking volumes and cancellation rates in this market. In early 2010, Thailand also experienced civil unrest, which caused the temporary relocation of agoda.com's Thailand-based operations. Future natural disasters, health

concerns or civil or political unrest could further disrupt our business and operations and adversely affect our results of operations.

We face risks related to the growth rate and expansion of our international business.

We derive a substantial portion of our revenues, and have significant operations, outside the United States. Our international operations include the Netherlands-based accommodation reservation service Booking.com, the Asia-based accommodation reservation service agoda.com, the U.K.-based rental car reservation service rentalcars.com and, to a lesser extent, KAYAK's international meta-search services and OpenTable's international restaurant reservation business. Our international operations have achieved significant year-over-year growth in their gross bookings (an operating and statistical metric referring to the total dollar value, generally inclusive of all taxes and fees, of all travel services purchased by our customers). This growth rate, which has contributed significantly to our growth in consolidated revenue, gross profit and earnings per share, has declined, a trend we expect to continue as the absolute level of our gross bookings grows larger. Other factors may also slow the growth rates of our revenues derived from our international business, including, for example, worldwide economic conditions, any strengthening of the U.S. Dollar versus the Euro and other currencies, declines in ADRs, increases in cancellations, adverse changes in travel market conditions and the competitiveness of the market. A decline in the growth rates of our international businesses could have a negative impact on our future gross profit and earnings per share growth rates and, as a consequence, our stock price.

Our strategy involves continued rapid international expansion in regions throughout the world. Many of these regions have different customs, currencies, levels of consumer acceptance and use of the Internet for commerce, legislation, regulatory environments, tax laws and levels of political stability. International markets may have strong local competitors with an established brand and tr

Showing the first 8K of 108K characters. Open the full section

None.

Our corporate headquarters and the headquarters of our priceline.com business are located in Norwalk, Connecticut, United States of America, where we lease approximately 70,000 square feet of office space. Our Booking.com business is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where we lease approximately 202,000 square feet of office space; our agoda.com business has significant support operations in Bangkok, Thailand, where we lease approximately 118,000 square feet of office space; our KAYAK business is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, United States of America, where we lease approximately 18,000 square feet of office space; our OpenTable business is headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States of America, where we lease approximately 51,000 square feet of office space; and our rentalcars.com business is headquartered in Manchester, England, where we lease approximately 63,000 square feet of office space. We lease additional office space to support our operations in various locations around the world, including hosting and data center facilities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Hong Kong and sales and support facilities in numerous locations. We do not own any real estate as of December 31, 2014.

We believe that our existing facilities are adequate to meet our current requirements, and that suitable additional or substitute space will be available as needed to accommodate any further expansion of corporate operations.

Competition Reviews

In July 2012, the Office of Fair Trading (the "OFT"), the predecessor competition authority in the United Kingdom to the Competition and Markets Authority ("CMA"), issued a "Statement of Objections" ("SO") to Booking.com, which set out the OFT's preliminary views on why it believed Booking.com and others in the online hotel reservation industry were allegedly in breach of E.U. and U.K. competition law. The SO alleged, among other things, that there were agreements or concerted practices between hotels and Booking.com and between hotels and at least one other OTC that restricted Booking.com's (and the other OTC's) ability to discount hotel room reservations, which the OFT alleged was a form of resale price maintenance. We dispute the allegations in the SO.

On January 31, 2014, the OFT announced that it had accepted commitments offered by Booking.com, as well as Expedia and Intercontinental Hotel Group, (the "Commitments") to close the investigation on the basis that they address the OFT's competition concerns. The OFT closed its investigation with no finding of infringement or admission of wrongdoing and no imposition of a fine.

The Commitments provide, among other things, that hotels will continue to be able to set retail prices for hotel room reservations on all OTC websites, such as Booking.com. Under the Commitments, OTCs, such as Booking.com, have the flexibility to discount a hotel's retail price, but only to members of closed groups, a concept that is defined in the Commitments, who have previously made a reservation through the OTC. The discount may be up to Booking.com's commission. In addition, the Commitments provide that Booking.com will not require rate parity from hotels in relation to discounted rates that are provided by other OTCs or hotels to members of their closed groups, provided the discounted rate is not made public. The Commitments apply to bookings by European Economic Area residents at U.K. hotels.

On March 31, 2014, Skyscanner, a meta-search site based in the United Kingdom, filed an appeal in the Competition Appeal Tribunal ("CAT") against the OFT's decision to accept the Commitments. Booking.com intervened in support of the CMA in the CAT. In its decision dated September 26, 2014, the CAT found that the CMA was wrong to reject Skyscanner's arguments about the negative impact of the Commitments on its business and price transparency generally without properly exploring these arguments. The CAT's decision vacates the CMA's Commitments decision and remits the matter to the CMA for reconsideration in accordance with the CAT's ruling. The CMA did not appeal the CAT's decision. It is uncertain what action the CMA will take in response to the CAT's ruling, which could involve re-opening, closing or suspending the investigation.

Investigations have also been opened by the national competition authorities in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark and Switzerland that focus on Booking.com's rate parity clause in its contracts with accommodation providers in those jurisdictions. Competition related inquiries have also been received from the competition authority in China. We are in ongoing discussions with the relevant regulatory authorities regarding their concerns. We are currently unable to predict the outcome of these investigations or how our business may be affected. Possible outcomes include requiring Booking.com to amend or remove its rate parity clause from its contracts with accommodation providers in those jurisdictions and/or the imposition of fines.

On December 15, 2014, the French, Italian and Swedish national competition authorities, working in close cooperation with the European Commission, announced their intention to seek public feedback on commitments offered by Booking.com in connection with investigations of Booking.com's rate parity provisions in its contractual arrangements with accommodation providers. If the proposed commitments are accepted by the French, Italian and Swedish competition authorities, the investigations in those countries will be closed with no finding of infringement or admission of wrongdoing and no imposition of a fine. Under the terms of the proposed commitments, Booking.com would replace its existing price parity agreements with accommodation providers - sometimes also referred to as "most favored nation" or "MFN" provisions - with "narrow" price parity agreements. Under the "narrow" price parity agreement, an accommodation provider would still be required to offer the same or better rates on Booking.com as it offered to a consumer directly, but it would no longer be required to offer the same or better rates on Booking.com as it offered to other on-line travel companies. If the commitments are accepted by the French, Italian and Swedish competition authorities after they have been market tested, Booking.com will implement the commitments within six months of their being accepted. We are currently unable to predict the outcome of the market test of the proposed commitments offered in France, Italy and Sweden or the impact the proposed commitments in France, Italy and Sweden will have on the on-going investigations in other European countries or how our business may be affected by the proposed commitments if accepted. We note that the German competition authority has required Hotel Reservation Service to remove its rate parity clause from its contracts with hotels, and Hotel Reservation Service's initial appeal was denied. To the extent that

regulatory authorities require changes to our business practices or to those currently common to the industry, our business, competitive position and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. Negative publicity regarding any such investigations could adversely affect our brands and therefore our market share and results of operations.

Lawsuits Alleging Antitrust Violations

On August 20, 2012, one complaint was filed on behalf of a putative class of persons who purchased hotel room reservations from certain hotels (the "Hotel Defendants") through certain OTC defendants, including us. The initial complaint, Turik v. Expedia, Inc., Case No. 12-cv-4365, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleged that the Hotel Defendants and the OTC defendants violated U.S. federal and state laws by entering into a conspiracy to enforce a minimum resale price maintenance scheme pursuant to which putative class members paid inflated prices for hotel room reservations that they purchased through the OTC defendants. Thirty-one other complaints containing similar allegations were filed in a number of federal jurisdictions across the country. Plaintiffs in these actions sought treble damages and injunctive relief.

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ("JPML") consolidated all of the pending cases under 28 U.S.C. §1407 before Judge Boyle in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. On May 1, 2013, an amended consolidated complaint was filed.

On February 18, 2014, Judge Boyle dismissed the amended consolidated complaint without prejudice. On October 27, 2014 the court denied plaintiffs' motion for leave to file a proposed Second Consolidated Amended Complaint, and on October 28, 2014 the court issued a final judgment dismissing the case with prejudice. The time to appeal the court's October 27, 2014 decision has expired and the matter is closed.

Litigation Related to Travel Transaction Taxes

We and certain third-party online travel companies ("OTCs") are currently involved in approximately forty lawsuits, including certified and putative class actions, brought by or against U.S. states, cities and counties over issues involving the payment of travel transaction taxes (e.g., hotel occupancy taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, etc.). Our subsidiaries priceline.com LLC, Lowestfare.com LLC and Travelweb LLC are named in some but not all of these cases. Generally, the complaints allege, among other things, that the OTCs violated each jurisdiction's respective relevant travel transaction tax ordinance with respect to the charge and remittance of amounts to cover taxes under each law. The complaints typically seek compensatory damages, disgorgement, penalties available by law, attorneys' fees and other relief. In addition, approximately seventy-nine municipalities or counties, and at least eleven states, have initiated audit proceedings (including proceedings initiated by more than forty municipalities in California, which have been inactive for several years), issued proposed tax assessments or started inquiries relating to the payment of travel transaction taxes. Additional state and local jurisdictions are likely to assert that we are subject to travel transaction taxes and could seek to collect such taxes, retroactively and/or prospectively.

With respect to the principal claims in these matters, we believe that the laws at issue do not apply to the services we provide, namely the facilitation of travel reservations, and, therefore, that we do not owe the taxes that are claimed to be owed. Rather, we believe that the laws at issue generally impose travel transaction taxes on entities that own, operate or control hotels (or similar businesses) or furnish or provide hotel rooms or similar accommodations or other travel services. In addition, in many of these matters, the taxing jurisdictions have asserted claims for "conversion" - essentially, that we have collected a tax and wrongfully "pocketed" those tax dollars - a claim that we believe is without basis and have vigorously contested. The taxing jurisdictions that are currently involved in litigation and other proceedings with us, and that may be involved in future proceedings, have asserted contrary positions and will likely continue to do so. From time to time, we have found it expedient to settle, and may in the future agree to settle, claims pending in these matters without conceding that the claims at issue are meritorious or that the claimed taxes are in fact due to be paid.

In connection with some of these tax audits and assessments, we may be required to pay any assessed taxes, which amounts may be substantial, prior to being allowed to contest the assessments and the applicability of the laws in judicial proceedings. This requirement is commonly referred to as "pay to play" or "pay first." For example, the City and County of San Francisco assessed the Company approximately $3.4 million (an amount that includes interest and penalties) relating to hotel occupancy taxes, which the Company paid in July 2009, and issued a second assessment totaling approximately $2.7 million, which the Company paid in January 2013. Payment of these amounts, if any, is not an admission that we believe we are subject to such taxes. In the San Francisco action, for example, the court ruled in February 2013 that we and OTCs do not owe transient accommodations tax to the city and ordered the city to refund the amount paid in July 2009; we also are seeking a refund of the amount paid in January 2013. San Francisco has appealed the court's ruling and has not refunded the amount paid

in July 2009 pending resolution of the appeal. The matter has been stayed while the appeal in another case with the City of San Diego is pending before the California Supreme Court.

Litigation is subject to uncertainty and there could be adverse developments in these pending or future cases and proceedings. For example, in January 2013, the Tax Appeal Court for the State of Hawaii held that we and other OTCs are not liable for the State's transient accommodations tax, but held that the OTCs, including us, are liable for the State's general excise tax on the full amount the OTC collects from the customer for a hotel room reservation, without any offset for amounts passed through to the hotel. We recorded an accrual for travel transaction taxes (including estimated interest and penalties), with a corresponding charge to cost of revenues, of approximately $16.5 million in December 2012 and approximately $18.7 million in the three months ended March 31, 2013, primarily related to this ruling. During the years ended December 31, 2013 and December 31, 2014, we paid approximately $20.6 million and $2.2 million, respectively, to the State of Hawaii related to this ruling. We have filed an appeal now pending before the Hawaii Supreme Court.

Other adverse rulings include a decision in September 2012, in which the Superior Court in the District of Columbia granted summary judgment in favor of the District and against the OTCs ruling that tax is due on the OTCs' margin and service fees, which we are appealing. As a result, we increased our accrual for travel transaction taxes (including estimated interest), with a corresponding charge to cost of revenues, by approximately $4.8 million in September 2012 and by approximately $5.6 million in the three months ended March 31, 2013. Also, in July 2013, the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, ruled that we and the other OTCs are liable for tax and other obligations under the Chicago Hotel Accommodations Tax. In July 2014, we resolved all claims in this case through settlement and the claims against us were dismissed on September 3, 2014. In addition, in October 2009, a jury in a San Antonio class action found that we and the other OTCs that are defendants in the lawsuit "control" hotels for purposes of the local hotel occupancy tax ordinances at issue and are, therefore, subject to the requirements of those ordinances. We intend to vigorously appeal the trial court's judgment when it becomes final.

An unfavorable outcome or settlement of pending litigation may encourage the commencement of additional litigation, audit proceedings or other regulatory inquiries and also could result in substantial liabilities for past and/or future bookings, including, among other things, interest, penalties, punitive damages and/or attorney fees and costs. There have been, and will continue to be, substantial ongoing costs, which may include "pay first" payments, associated with defending our position in pending and any future cases or proceedings. An adverse outcome in one or more of these unresolved proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our business and could be material to our results of operations or cash flow in any given operating period. However, we believe that even if we were to suffer adverse determinations in the near term in more of the pending proceedings than currently anticipated, given results to date it would not have a material impact on our liquidity because of our available cash.

To the extent that any tax authority succeeds in asserting that our services are subject to travel transaction taxes and that we have a tax collection responsibility for those taxes, or we determine that we have such a responsibility, with respect to future transactions we may collect any such additional tax obligation from our customers, which would have the effect of increasing the cost of travel reservations to our customers and, consequently, could make our travel reservation services less competitive (as compared to the services of other OTCs or travel service providers) and reduce our travel reservation transactions; alternatively, we could choose to reduce the compensation for our services. Either action could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

In many of the judicial and other proceedings initiated to date, the taxing jurisdictions seek not only historical taxes that are claimed to be owed on our gross profit, but also, among other things, interest, penalties, punitive damages and/or attorney fees and costs. Therefore, any liability associated with travel transaction tax matters is not constrained to our liability for tax owed on its historical gross profit, but may also include, among other things, penalties, interest and attorneys' fees. To date, the majority of the taxing jurisdictions in which we facilitate hotel reservations have not asserted that these taxes are due and payable. With respect to taxing jurisdictions that have not initiated proceedings to date, it is possible that they will do so in the future or that they will seek to amend their tax statutes and seek to collect taxes from us only on a prospective basis.

Accrual for Travel Transaction Taxes

As a result of this litigation and other attempts by jurisdictions to levy similar taxes, we have established an accrual (including estimated interest and penalties) for the potential resolution of issues related to travel transaction taxes in the amount of approximately $52 million at December 31, 2014 compared to approximately $55 million at December 31, 2013. Our legal expenses for these matters are expensed as incurred and are not reflected in the amount accrued. The actual cost may be less or greater, potentially significantly, than the liabilities recorded. An estimate for a reasonably possible loss or range of loss in excess of the amount accrued cannot be reasonably made.

We intend to vigorously defend against the claims in all of the proceedings described below.

Statewide Class Actions and Putative Class Actions

Such actions include:

Actions Filed on Behalf of Individual Cities, Counties and States

Such actions include:

Judicial Actions Relating to Assessments Issued by Individual Cities, Counties and States

We may seek judicial review of assessments issued by an individual city or county. Currently pending actions seeking such a review include:

Administrative Proceedings and Other Possible Actions

At various times, we have also received inquiries or proposed tax assessments from municipalities and other taxing jurisdictions relating to our charges and remittance of amounts to cover state and local travel transaction taxes. Among others, the City of Paradise Valley, Arizona; fifteen cities (and one county) in Colorado; Arlington, Texas; Lake County, Indiana; and state tax officials from Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin have begun formal or informal administrative procedures or stated that they may assert claims against us relating to allegedly unpaid state or local travel transaction taxes. Between 2008 and 2010, we received audit notices from more than forty cities in the state of California. The audit proceedings in those cities have not been active but have not been formally closed. We have also been contacted for audit by five counties in the state of Utah.

Patent Infringement

On February 9, 2015, International Business Machines Corporation ("IBM") filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware against us and our subsidiaries KAYAK Software Corporation, OpenTable, Inc. and priceline.com LLC (the "Subject Companies"). In the complaint, IBM alleges that the Subject Companies have infringed and continue to willfully infringe certain IBM patents that IBM claims relate to the presentation of applications and advertising in an interactive service, preserving state information in online transactions and single sign-on processes in a computing environment and seeks unspecified damages (including a request that the amount of compensatory damages be trebled), injunctive relief and costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees. We believe the claims to be without merit and intend to contest them vigorously.

Other

We intend to defend vigorously against the claims in all of the proceedings described in this Item 3. We have accrued for certain legal contingencies where it is probable that a loss has been incurred and the amount can be reasonably estimated. Except as disclosed, such amounts accrued are not material to our consolidated balance sheets and provisions recorded have not been material to our consolidated results of operations or cash flows. We are unable to estimate a reasonably possible range of loss.

From time to time, we have been, and expect to continue to be, subject to legal proceedings and claims in the ordinary course of business, including claims of alleged infringement of third party intellectual property rights. Such claims, even if not meritorious, could result in the expenditure of significant financial and managerial resources, divert management's attention from our business objectives and adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Not applicable.

PART II

Price Range of Common Stock

Our common stock is quoted on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "PCLN." The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the high and low sales prices per share of our common stock as reported on the NASDAQ Global Select Market:

Holders

As of February 11, 2015, there were approximately 239 stockholders of record of The Priceline Group Inc.'s common stock.

Dividend Policy

We have not declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock since our inception and do not expect to pay any cash dividends for the foreseeable future. We currently intend to retain future earnings, if any, to finance the expansion of our business.

Performance Measurement Comparison

The following graph shows the total stockholder return through December 31, 2014 of an investment of $100 in cash on December 31, 2009 for The Priceline Group Inc. common stock and an investment of $100 in cash on December 31, 2009 for (i) the NASDAQ Composite Index, (ii) the Standard and Poor's 500 Index and (iii) the Research Data Group ("RDG") Internet Composite Index. The RDG Internet Composite Index is an index of stocks representing the Internet industry, including Internet software and service companies and e-commerce companies. Historic stock performance is not necessarily indicative of future stock price performance. All values assume reinvestment of the full amount of all dividends and are calculated as of the last day of each month:

Sales of Unregistered Securities

Between October 1, 2014 and December 31, 2014, we issued 599 shares of our common stock in connection with the conversion of $250,000 principal amount of our 1.25% Convertible Senior Notes due 2015. The conversions were effected in accordance with the indenture, which provides that the principal amount of converted notes be paid in cash and the conversion premium be paid in cash and/or shares of common stock at our election. The issuances of the shares were not registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Act") pursuant to Section 3(a)(9) of the Act.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

The following table sets forth information relating to repurchases of our equity securities during the three months ended December 31, 2014:

ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

The selected consolidated financial data presented below is derived from the Consolidated Financial Statements and related Notes of the Company, and should be read in connection with those statements, some of which are included herein. Selected financial data reflects data related to rentalcars.com from its acquisition date of May 2010, KAYAK from its acquisition date of May 2013 and OpenTable from its acquisition date of July 2014. The information set forth below is not necessarily indicative of future results and should be read in conjunction with Part II Item 7 Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

The following discussion should be read in conjunction with our Consolidated Financial Statements, including the notes to those statements, included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and the Section entitled "Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. As discussed in more detail in the Section entitled "Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements," this discussion contains forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause those differences include those discussed in "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Overview

We are a leading provider of online travel and travel related reservation and search services. Through our online travel agent ("OTA") services, we connect consumers wishing to make travel reservations with providers of travel services around the world. We offer consumers accommodation reservations (including hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, apartments, vacation rentals and other properties) through our Booking.com, priceline.com and agoda.com brands. Our priceline.com brand also offers consumers reservations for rental cars, airline tickets, vacation packages and cruises. We offer rental car reservations worldwide through rentalcars.com. We also allow consumers to easily compare airline ticket, hotel reservation and rental car reservation information from hundreds of travel websites at once through KAYAK. We recently acquired OpenTable, a leading provider of online restaurant reservations. We believe that the online restaurant reservation business is complementary to our online travel businesses, and that both OpenTable and our travel businesses will benefit from adding OpenTable to The Priceline Group. We refer to our company and all of our subsidiaries and brands, including Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, rentalcars.com and, as of July 24, 2014, OpenTable, collectively as "The Priceline Group," the "Company," "we," "our" or "us."

We launched our business in the United States in 1998 under the priceline.com brand and have since expanded our operations to include Booking.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, rentalcars.com and OpenTable, which are independently managed and operated brands. Our principal goal is to serve consumers and our travel service provider and restaurant partners with worldwide leadership in online reservation services. Our business is driven primarily by international results, which consist of the results of Booking.com, agoda.com and rentalcars.com and the results of the internationally based websites of KAYAK and, as of July 24, 2014, OpenTable (in each case regardless of where the consumer resides, where the consumer is physically located while making a reservation or the location of the travel service provider or restaurant). During the year ended December 31, 2014, our international business (the substantial majority of which is generated by Booking.com) represented approximately 87% of our gross bookings (an operating and statistical metric referring to the total dollar value, generally inclusive of all taxes and fees, of all travel services purchased by our customers), and approximately 94% of our consolidated operating income. See Note 18 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for more geographic information. A significant majority of our gross profit is earned in connection with facilitating accommodation reservations.

We derive substantially all of our gross profit from the following sources:

Our priceline.com brand offers merchant Name Your Own Price® opaque travel services, which are recorded in revenue on a "gross" basis and have associated cost of revenue. All of our other services are recorded in revenue on a "net" basis and have no associated cost of revenue. Therefore, revenue increases and decreases are impacted by changes in the mix of our revenues between Name Your Own Price® travel services and other services. Gross profit reflects the commission or net margin earned for our retail, Name Your Own Price® and semi-opaque travel services and our advertising and other services. Consequently, gross profit is an important measure to evaluate growth in our business because, in contrast to our revenues, it is not affected by

the different methods of recording revenue and cost of revenue between our Name Your Own Price® travel services and our other services.

Trends

Over the last several years we have experienced strong growth in our accommodation reservation services. We believe this growth is the result of, among other things, the broader shift of travel purchases from offline to online, the widespread adoption of mobile devices, the high growth of travel overall in emerging markets such as Asia-Pacific and South America, and the continued innovation and execution by our teams around the world to build accommodation supply, content and distribution and to improve the customer experience on our websites and mobile apps. These year-over-year growth rates have generally decelerated in recent years. For example, for the year ended December 31, 2014, our accommodation room night reservation growth was 28%, a deceleration from 37% in 2013, 40% in 2012 and 53% in 2011. Given the size of our hotel reservation business, we expect that our year-over-year growth rates will continue to decelerate, though the rate of deceleration may fluctuate.

The size of the travel market outside of the United States is substantially greater than that within the United States. Historically, Internet use and e-commerce activity of international consumers have trailed that of consumers in the United States. However, international consumers are rapidly moving to online means for purchasing travel. Accordingly, recent international online travel growth rates have substantially exceeded, and are expected to continue to exceed, the growth rates within the United States. We expect that over the long-term, international online travel growth rates will follow a similar trend to that experienced in the United States. In addition, the base of hotel properties in Europe and Asia is particularly fragmented compared to that in the United States, where the hotel market is dominated by large hotel chains. We believe online reservation systems like ours may be more appealing to small chains and independent hotels more commonly found outside of the United States. Our growth has primarily been generated by our international accommodation reservation service brands, Booking.com and agoda.com. Booking.com, our most significant brand, included over 600,000 properties on its website as of February 13, 2015, which included over 245,000 vacation rental properties (updated property counts are available on the Booking.com website).

Showing the first 8K of 132K characters. Open the full section

We manage our exposure to interest rate risk and foreign currency risk through internally established policies and procedures and, when deemed appropriate, through the use of derivative financial instruments. We use foreign exchange derivative contracts to manage short-term foreign currency risk.

The objective of our policies is to mitigate potential income statement, cash flow and fair value exposures resulting from possible future adverse fluctuations in rates. We evaluate our exposure to market risk by assessing the anticipated near-term and long-term fluctuations in interest rates and foreign exchange rates. This evaluation includes the review of leading market indicators, discussions with financial analysts and investment bankers regarding current and future economic conditions and the review of market projections as to expected future rates. We utilize this information to determine our own investment strategies as well as to determine if the use of derivative financial instruments is appropriate to mitigate any potential future market exposure that we may face. Our policy does not allow speculation in derivative instruments for profit or execution of derivative instrument contracts for which there are no underlying exposures. We do not use financial instruments for trading purposes and are not a party to any leveraged derivatives. To the extent that changes in interest rates and currency exchange rates affect general economic conditions, we would also be affected by such changes.

We did not experience any material changes in interest rate exposures during the year ended December 31, 2014. Based upon economic conditions and leading market indicators at December 31, 2014, we do not foresee a significant adverse change in interest rates in the near future.

Fixed rate investments are subject to unrealized gains and losses due to interest rate volatility. We performed a sensitivity analysis to determine the impact a change in interest rates would have on the fair value of our available for sale investments assuming an adverse change of 100 basis points. A hypothetical 100 basis point (1.0%) increase in interest rates would have resulted in a decrease in the fair values of our investments as of December 31, 2014 of approximately $85 million. These hypothetical losses would only be realized if we sold the investments prior to their maturity.

As of December 31, 2014, the outstanding aggregate principal amount of our debt is $4.2 billion. We estimate that the market value of such debt was approximately $4.8 billion as of December 31, 2014. A substantial portion of the market value of our debt in excess of the outstanding principal amount is related to the conversion premium on our outstanding convertible bonds.

We conduct a significant portion of our business outside the United States through subsidiaries with functional currencies other than the U.S. Dollar (primarily Euros). As a result, we face exposure to adverse movements in currency exchange rates as the operating results of our international operations are translated from local currency into U.S. Dollars upon consolidation. If the U.S. Dollar weakens against the local currency, the translation of these foreign-currency-denominated balances will result in increased net assets, gross bookings, gross profit, operating expenses, and net income. Similarly, our net assets, gross bookings, gross profit, operating expenses, and net income will decrease if the U.S. Dollar strengthens against the local currency. Additionally, foreign exchange rate fluctuations on transactions denominated in currencies other than the functional currency results in gains and losses that are reflected in the Consolidated Statement of Operations.

From time to time, we enter into foreign exchange derivative contracts to minimize the impact of short-term foreign currency fluctuations on our consolidated operating results. Our derivative contracts principally address foreign exchange fluctuation risk for the Euro and the British Pound Sterling versus the U.S. Dollar. As of December 31, 2014 and 2013, there were no such outstanding derivative contracts associated with foreign currency translation risk. Foreign exchange gains of $13.7 million, $0.3 million, and $0.7 million for the years ended December 31, 2014, 2013, and 2012, respectively, were recorded in "Foreign currency transactions and other" in the Consolidated Statements of Operations.

The following Consolidated Financial Statements of the Company and the report of our independent registered public accounting firm are filed as part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K (See Part IV Item 15 Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules).

Consolidated Balance Sheets as of December 31, 2014 and 2013; Consolidated Statements of Operations, Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income, Consolidated Statements of Changes in Stockholders' Equity and Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the years ended December 31, 2014, 2013 and 2012; Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements and Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm.

None.

Disclosure Controls and Procedures. Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and our principal financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of our disclosure controls and procedures, as such term is defined under Exchange Act Rule 13a-15(e). Based on this evaluation, our principal executive officer and our principal financial officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, we include a report of our management's assessment of the design and effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting for the year ended December 31, 2014.

Management's Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting. Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Exchange Act Rule 13a-15(f). Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting based on the framework in the Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission.

Based on our evaluation, our management concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of December 31, 2014. Our independent registered public accounting firm also attested to, and reported on, our management's assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting.

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.

Changes in Internal Controls. No change in our internal control over financial reporting (as such term is defined in Exchange Act Rule 13a-15(f)) occurred during the three months ended December 31, 2014 that materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM

To the Board of Directors and Stockholders of

The Priceline Group Inc.

Norwalk, Connecticut

We have audited the internal control over financial reporting of The Priceline Group Inc. (formerly known as priceline.com Incorporated) and subsidiaries (the "Company") as of December 31, 2014, based on criteria established in Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. The Company's management is responsible for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting and for its assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, included in "Management's Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting" appearing in Item 9A. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company's internal control over financial reporting based on our audit.

We conducted our audit in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States). Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects. Our audit included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material weakness exists, testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the assessed risk, and performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.

A company's internal control over financial reporting is a process designed by, or under the supervision of, the company's principal executive and principal financial officers, or persons performing similar functions, and effected by the company's board of directors, management, and other personnel to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A company's internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that (1) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company; (2) provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the company; and (3) provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition of the company's assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.

Because of the inherent limitations of internal control over financial reporting, including the possibility of collusion or improper management override of controls, material misstatements due to error or fraud may not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. Also, projections of any evaluation of the effectiveness of the internal control over financial reporting to future periods are subject to the risk that the controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.

In our opinion, the Company maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2014, based on the criteria established in Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission.

We have also audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States), the consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 2014 of the Company and our report dated February 18, 2015 expressed an unqualified opinion on those financial statements.

/s/ DELOITTE & TOUCHE LLP

Stamford, Connecticut

February 18, 2015

None.

PART III

Information required by Part III Item 10 will be included in our Proxy Statement relating to our 2015 annual meeting of stockholders to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of our fiscal year ended December 31, 2014, and is incorporated herein by reference.

Information required by Part III Item 11 will be included in our Proxy Statement relating to our 2015 annual meeting of stockholders to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of our fiscal year ended December 31, 2014, and is incorporated herein by reference.

Information required by Part III Item 12 will be included in our Proxy Statement relating to our 2015 annual meeting of stockholders to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of our fiscal year ended December 31, 2014, and is incorporated herein by reference.

Information required by Part III Item 13 will be included in our Proxy Statement relating to our 2015 annual meeting of stockholders to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of our fiscal year ended December 31, 2014, and is incorporated herein by reference.

Information required by Part III Item 14 will be included in our Proxy Statement relating to our 2015 annual meeting of stockholders to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of our fiscal year ended December 31, 2014 and is incorporated herein by reference.

PART IV

(a) List of Documents Filed as a Part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K:

The following Consolidated Financial Statements of the Company and the report of our independent registered public accounting firm are filed as part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Consolidated Balance Sheets as of December 31, 2014 and 2013; and the related Consolidated Statements of Operations, Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income, Consolidated Statements of Changes in Stockholders' Equity and Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the years ended December 31, 2014, 2013 and 2012; Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements; and Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm.

All financial statement schedules have been omitted because they are not applicable, not material or the required information is shown in the Consolidated Financial Statements or the notes thereto.

(b) Exhibits

In reviewing the agreements included as exhibits to this Annual Report on Form 10-K, please remember they are included to provide you with information regarding their terms and are not intended to provide any other factual or disclosure information about the Company or the other parties to the agreements. Some agreements contain representations and warranties by each of the parties to the applicable agreement. These representations and warranties have been made solely for the benefit of the other parties to the applicable agreement and:

Accordingly, these representations and warranties may not describe the actual state of affairs as of the date they were made or at any other time. Additional information about the Company may be found elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10‑K and the Company's other public filings, which are available without charge through the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov.

Showing the first 8K of 205K characters. Open the full section