A Fool Looks Back

Rick Aristotle Munarriz, The Motley Fool
Updated

Avis Budget came up short in the Dollar Thrifty bidding war that could have potentially made it the largest traditional auto-rental agency, but a single deal this week will find the company atop the faster-growing car-sharing industry.

Avis Budget is buying Zipcar in a $491 million deal, and it will be a surprisingly synergistic deal. Avis lacks a notable presence in offering conveniently accessible cars in major metropolitan areas that are available by the hour. Zipcar can use access to a larger fleet, particularly on weekends -- which is the lull for Avis and its business travelers.

The buyout will be bittersweet for Zipcar investors. The company commanded a market cap of $1.2 billion within minutes of going public, and now shareholders are being cashed out at a discount to its 2011 IPO. However, kicking off the first trading day of 2013 with a nearly 50% pop sounds pretty good these days.


Briefly in the news
And now let's take a quick look at some of the other stories that shaped our week.

  • Zynga shut down more of its games as 2012 came to a close. Let's see whether "resentment" is a hit as a Draw Something word.

  • Baidu got some more hate mail, as another analyst lowered its price target on shares of China's leading search engine. The price target went from $82 to $80.

  • Netflix's Christmas Eve outage was unfortunate, but Amazon.com apologized this past weekend. Hey, Netflix. Amazon is sorry that its own video streaming service was running perfectly fine while your more popular offering stumbled on Amazon's servers. That fixes everything. Right?

Moving on
There's also a premium report on Baidu, taking a close look at China's dot-com darling. The premium research comes with a year's worth of updates. Click here to check it out.

The article A Fool Looks Back originally appeared on Fool.com.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Aristotle Munarriz owns shares of Netflix and Zipcar. The Motley Fool owns shares of Amazon.com, Baidu, Netflix, and Zipcar. Motley Fool newsletter services recommend Amazon.com, Baidu, Netflix, and Zipcar. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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