Orbitz Sets IPO Price Range

The online plane reservation system is owned by a consortium of airlines.

Author:: TSC Staff
Publish date:: Nov 26, 2003 8:35 AM EST

The online plane reservation system is owned by a consortium of airlines.

Orbitz, the online reservations system owned by a consortium of airlines, expects to go public at a price of between $22 to $24 a share, raising about $82 million for it and helping cash out its founders.

The company is currently owned by

Continental

(CAL) - Get Report

Delta

(DAL) - Get Report

Northwest

(NWAC)

United

(UALAQ)

and

AMR

(AMR)

The Goldman Sachs-led deal will occur on the

Nasdaq

under the ticker ORBZ. According to a filing with the

Securities and Exchange Commission

, the company itself will sell 4 million shares, while its owners will unload 7 million, for total proceeds of around $304 million.

From a capital standpoint, the IPO takes Orbitz in the opposite direction of its chief competitor, Expedia, whose outstanding shares were recently brought back in by parent

InteractiveCorp

(IACI)

. The other big player in the space is Travelocity, which is owned by

Sabre Holdings

(TSG) - Get Report

The cash infusion could be timely. Orbitz has never had a profitable year but turned a $4 million profit on revenue of $64 million in the three months to Sept. 30. The company did about $180 million in revenue in the first nine months of this year.