HomeAway Broadens Presence In Australia With Acquisition Of Vacation Rental Site RealHolidays

As it prepares for a public offering, vacation rental giant HomeAway is continuing its aggressive acquisition strategy with the purchase of realholidays.com.au, the Australian vacation rental brand of REA Group Limited. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition broadens HomeAway’s presence in the Australian market, and into the Asia-Pacific region.Currently HomeAway has presences in North America, Europe and South America. Realholidays.com.au, which currently features which features 21,000 listings, will be integrated with HomeAway.com.au and will be managed by James Cassidy, formerly of realholidays.com.au and vacation rental site, stayz.com.au. HomeAway.com.au already features 105,900 vacation rental listings in 99 countries.

International expansion is a key growth strategy for the vacation rentals giant and I think we can expect HomeAway to continue to make similar acquisitions in the coming year. In 2010, 37.9% of the company’s revenue of $167.9 million came from outside the United States, including 36.6% from Europe and 1.3% from Latin America.

A few weeks ago, HomeAway filed for an IPO valued at $230 million (though this could be a placeholder amount). HomeAway has raised close to a half a billion dollars in venture funding, and in its most recent investment round was valued at $1.4 billion.