Buy Barry Diller’s Baby Before Split

Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix: in its first 25 years or so the Internet has delivered its share of investing home runs and household names.

And then there’s IAC/Interactive (IAC). I see your blank stare. Unlike the better known giants, IAC hasn’t built a famous brand around its name. Instead, it’s bought, nurtured and sold a long string of Internet success stories, Ticketmaster, Expedia and TripAdvisor among them.

The current bread winner is the dating empire centered on Match.com and fueled by Tinder.

The next biggish thing is the fast-growing HomeAdvisor service matching homeowners with home repair contractors.

All the buying, selling and nurturing has treated shareholders pretty well. IAC shares have quintupled in value over the last eight years, handily outperforming the Nasdaq-100.

After rolling out the Match Group (MTCH) tracking stock in late 2015, IAC is widely expected to spin off its dating cash cow later this year. Even if the separation doesn’t provide an immediate boost to the share price it should do so over the long run by letting value investors follow the spinoff’s cash flow while growth fans focus on the barely tapped potential of HomeAdvisor.

That business has feasted on clumsy rival Angie’s List while recruiting 8 million homeowners and 142,000 service providers to its platform. That platform now accounts for 3% of the $400 billion home services markets, and HomeAdvisor gets 3-4% of the contracted price. Revenue has tripled in the last three years, while EBITDA more than doubled last year. Match Group earned eight times as much, but HomeAdvisor has a much longer growth runway, even as Amazon gets in the game.

Source: HomeAdvisor presentation

Barry Diller is now IAC’s chairman rather than CEO, but this is still his company in ways that transcend the 7% ownership stake. Diller rose from a talent agency’s mailroom to mentor protégés like former Disney boss Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks, and came within two Supreme Court votes of crippling the cable industry with his over-the-Internet broadcasting relay service Aereo.

Beyond HomeAdvisor, IAC’s stable includes the video sharing platform Vimeo and a stable of online media properties starting with About.com, which remains under renovation. Publishing costs have been cut to stop the bleeding in the wake of a restructured advertising deal with Google, and the dependence on that revenue reduced.

The company generates healthy free cash flow, and used all of it and more last year to repurchase 8% of its share count at a hefty discount to the current price. Net debt is minimal and valuation reasonable at 12x the adjusted EBITDA based on enterprise value. I’m adding IAC to the portfolio with a buy limit of $85.

 

Stock Talk

Roger Dehring

Roger Dehring

Good morning, Igor,

Didn’t comment when you made this recommendation, however, I bought JAN/2018 $75 calls and sold MAY $80 calls for a -$6.45 debit. With IAC up about $7 the past few weeks, I thought it best to deal with the $80 calls. Rolled them up and out this morning to OCT $85 for a +$0.45 credit.

Will see what the summer brings for this company (Home Advisor) that my son works for. Goal will be to get one more roll up to $90 to make this a real nice winner!

Have a great day!

Roger

Roger Dehring

Roger Dehring

With IAC up big this morning, took another look at my trade.

Decided to take my profit, rather than roll up and wait until fall or next January. Just closed my position (long JAN 75 calls and short OCT 85 calls) for +$9.76.

Invested $6.45 on April 5. Including the $0.45 I earned on a roll last week, my total return is $10.21. I’ll gladly take that gain in less than a month and move on.

Thanks, Roger

Igor Greenwald

Igor Greenwald

Congrats on the great trade and I expect your son will be very busy with this Angie’s List merger cementing HomeAdvisor as a category killer. I’ll try to post a little more on IAC later today.

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