12 Stocks to Buy That May Be Splitting Soon

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3. Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG)

Share Price as of March 17: $4,465.48

Surge in Share Price in 5 Years: 279.26%

Stock Split Confirmed: No

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 99

Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) is a global leader in online travel and restaurant reservations. Through its prominent brands like Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, KAYAK, and OpenTable, it provides a suite of services. These include accommodation, flight, and rental car reservations, as well as restaurant bookings and related travel solutions.

The company’s Accommodation segment, primarily Booking.com, is the core of its business. Q4 2024 saw room night growth of 13% year-over-year, while full-year 2024 growth was 9% year-over-year. Alternative accommodations experienced a 19% room night increase in Q4, with listings reaching 7.9 million. Merchant gross bookings on Booking.com hit 59% of total bookings in 2024, which was up 9% year-over-year.

The Genius loyalty program’s higher tiers (Levels 2 and 3) accounted for over 30% of active travelers, who booked a mid-50s percentage of room nights. Direct bookings represented the mid-60s percentage of B2C room nights in 2024. Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) is implementing a transformation program to achieve $400-450 million in annual cost reductions. It’s reinvesting $170 million in strategic areas like GenAI and fintech.

Cooper Investors Global Equities Fund stated the following regarding Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

“The largest contributors to returns were Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) and Liberty Formula One (FWONK). BKNG is the leading global travel platform (larger than Airbnb and Expedia combined on an annual room nights booked basis). Operating trends continue to be strong driven by tailwinds from global travel demand and new CFO Ewout Steenbergen finding cost efficiencies following a period of investment. This resulted in third quarter revenue growth of 9% driving Earnings Per Share growth of 16%, a run rate we believe is now sustainable for the business. BKNG has been a highly successful investment, delivering returns of 130% since our first investment in December 2022. But going forward we see less value latency and have consequently begun to redeploy capital into more compelling opportunities.”

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