Webjet to buy Travel.com.au - Introducing Traveljet.com or Webminute.com.au or Travelwebminute.com.au or lastjetminute.com.au

News hot off the press from Travel Weekly (Australia) that Webjet - the number one air intermediary in Australia - is to acquire all of the stock of Travel.com.au. Travel.com.au is the number two player and owner of the Lastminute.com franchise in Australia. Will make the combined entity the clear number one in online intermediary air but still a long way behind the airline direct sites.

Travel.com.au was valued at AUD$31mm before a trading halt. The deal is for 10 cents in cash and 0.23 Webjet shares per Travel.com.au. This values the company at $42.3mm based on the last closing price of Webet or a 20+% premium.

Couple of questions from this:

• What will happen in the management area given the very recent announcement of a change at the top of Travel.com.au. Chris Meehan was due to take over from Adam Johnson as CEO in the new year. Webjet already have both a CEO (Richard Noon) and a Managing Director (David Clarke);
• What will happen to the Webjet board. Current Travel.com.au shareholders will come away with large stakes in Webjet and may want a board seat;
  
• What will happen to the Travel.com.au brand. Would be madness to lose the Lastmintue.com.au brand but surely we will see a merger of the Webjet and Travel.com.au brands; and
  
• It finally gives Webjet a position in the online hotel business with Lastminute.com.au. What will this mean for Lotsofbeds.

All fun stuff to watch cannot let ourselves get distracted from the online hotel battle in Australia and Asia which makes a sideshow out of the intermediary air wars.

Thanks to the army of tipsters who sent through the story