KKR Becomes ‘Significant Minority Investor’ in Booking.com Partner eTraveli Group

Booking.com sees growing its flights business as a strategic priority. An eTraveli deal may still be on its agenda if it can get the courts to overturn a competition decision.

If Booking Holdings gets the chance to again try and acquire its flight-services partner eTraveli Group, it likely would have to pay nearly double the $1.8 billion the two parties agreed to in 2021.

eTraveli Group announced this week that private equity firm KKR became "a significant minority investor," and Bloomberg quoted sources as saying that the valuation was $3.1 billion. Fellow private equity company CVC Capital Partners is the majority investor.

Amsterdam-based Booking and Stockholm-headquartered eTraveli Group, which powers Booking.com's growing flights business, agreed to the $1.8 billion deal in 2021, but the European Commission blocked the deal on competition grounds in 2023.