Starboard Goes Full Fixer Upper on Tripadvisor… Demo Day Starts With a 17% Pop

When Starboard Value takes a swing at a company, there’s a reason investors start placing their bets accordingly. The activist hedge fund, run by Jeff Smith (who, fun fact, didn’t cut his teeth on Wall Street but at his family’s juice company before co-founding Starboard in 2002), has made a career out of shaking corporate trees until something profitable falls out.

Take Autodesk, for example. Earlier this year, Starboard launched a public proxy fight, nominating its own slate of directors and calling out the company’s out-of-control spending and lackluster margins. By April, they’d secured two board seats, and just weeks later, Autodesk suddenly got real serious with the idea of “cost discipline” and “margin expansion.” If you think that’s a coincidence, I’ve got a business idea I’d like you to front the startup costs for (just trust me bro, it’s 100% gonna work). At Salesforce, Starboard joined a chorus of activists demanding change after the company’s operating margins lagged behind it’s peers (think: Microsoft and Oracle). Within months, Salesforce cut spending and began preaching employee efficiency. They were Joyce Meyers on a Sunday morning. While Jeff Smith didn’t lead that campaign solo, he definitely helped push it over the edge.

And then there’s Pfizer, Kenvue, and Match Group… where Starboard’s playbook has stayed consistent: buy a meaningful stake, pressure the board, expose inefficiencies, and push for structural change. Well, now like Chuck and Joanna Gaines, Starboard’s targeting a new fixer-upper: Tripadvisor.

Today, Starboard disclosed it acquired a 9% stake in the online travel platform… a position worth roughly $160 million. The news dropped like a flashbang on Wall Street. Tripadvisor shares are up 17% (at the time of writing), making it their biggest jump in history (okay, maybe not but it’s been awhile). That spike pushed the company’s market cap close to $2.3 billion… a sharp reversal for a stock that had been flatlining most of the year.

And let’s be honest, Tripadvisor needed a jolt. Heading into July, the stock was down over 30% year-to-date. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones U.S. Travel & Leisure Index is up 10.5%, showing just how far behind Tripadvisor had fallen.

In their filing, Starboard called Tripadvisor “undervalued”... which to most people sounds like, “Hmm, maybe I should buy a few shares,” but what it really means in activist-speak is, “Management isn’t doing enough, and we’re about to make that painfully obvious.” They also made it clear they plan to engage with leadership… which is a polite way of saying, “We’re coming for your budgets, your strategy, and possibly your board seats.” That’s the Starboard playbook… and more often than not, it works. Ironically, this all comes at a time when Tripadvisor is already knee-deep in its own identity crisis.

(Source: Reuters)

For instance, Back in December 2024, they officially broke ties with longtime controlling shareholder Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings, making them fully independent for the first time in years. Two months later, in February, they formed a special committee to explore “strategic alternatives.” (Meaning “we’re open to being acquired, merged, or spiritually reborn.”) By March, reports surfaced that Apollo Global Management was eyeing the company. Which is a good thing because that means Starboard isn’t walking into some frozen in time zombie stock. They’re stepping into a company already fielding offers, weighing big decisions, and, most importantly, missing the kind of leadership that can actually steer it somewhere useful.

And if you look at the numbers, it’s looking like a “open the safe and give me all your money” kind of steal. Tripadvisor currently trades at just 7.93x forward earnings. But the industry media is at 16.22x. So that’s the market saying, “We’ve completely given up on this brand.” And yet, Tripadvisor still owns two real growth assets: Viator (tours and experiences) and TheFork (a restaurant booking platform dominating parts of Europe). Both are expanding, and both might be worth more on their own… or at least better utilized under sharper leadership.

Put all that together, and you can see Starboard’s thesis in full view: this isn’t just some sleepy, underperforming travel stock. It’s a neglected bundle of valuable assets trading like it’s one downgrade away from hospice care. And if you’ve followed Starboard before, you know they’re not in it for a quick headline and a modest bounce. When they show up, it’s with a full toolkit… board shakeups, CEO’s told to kick rocks, and sometimes, a “for sale” sign on the front lawn. The 17% rally after their stake was disclosed is just the market giving them a polite golf clap and saying, “Yes, please. Fix this.”

Sure, Tripadvisor might’ve left me stranded at a motel once with no hot water, no refund, and no one answering the phone (shoutout to their legendary customer service). But for shareholders, this is a dream come true.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Microsoft as mentioned in the article.